


That One Night Tahno Met Korra

by therentyoupay



Series: santa kris 2013 ; holiday gift giveaway [3]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, College, College AU, F/M, Modern AU, That One Night!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:24:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therentyoupay/pseuds/therentyoupay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What two particular graduate student-bio lab researchers have never quite realized... is that they've actually already encountered one another, long before their lives ever involved things like demonic lab-rats or snack jars or couch custody. They'd met one another before. In another life.</p><p>The college life, to be exact.</p><p>— Tahno/Korra, AU, That One Night!verse. An optional, just-for-fun companion fic in which we jump back in time to when Korra is an undergrad... and so is Tahno.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. THE CHALLENGE

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaname's harisen](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=kaname%27s+harisen).



> **Gift Prompt:** **_kaname's harisen_** , who requested the prompt, _celebration_ and _Kiss #14: kiss along the hips_. More specifically, this is the **SANTA KRIS** gift fic for **_kaname's harisen_** , who also coincidentally happens to be one of the most loyal and dedicated reviewers I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know. Thank you so much, Heather, for each and every one! I always appreciate every comment, every suggestion, and every bout of flailing... and now I hope I can show some of that appreciation here, with this gift to you!
> 
>  **Author's Notes:** _1/4/14._ Inspired by Chapter **#60** of _That One Night_ , in which Shaozu said: “You can't honestly tell me that the great Tahno of Undergrad wouldn't have been the least bit intrigued by someone so willing to put you in your place!" A bit of flash!fiction fun, gone overboard. My personal goal was to make this one-shot under 10,000 words. (I failed brilliantly, of course.) 
> 
> **And before anyone even asks: No, this fic will not ever be explicitly mentioned in** _That One Night_ **. There will only be cruel, ironic, subtle allusions, at most.**
> 
> Also, writing this one-shot has brought INSURMOUNTABLE writer's block on more than one occasion. It's been incredibly fun, but it also proved to be even more difficult than writing the double date chapter at times, which I'd thought was IMPOSSIBLE, so there you go. Four months in the making! Many headaches, lots of fun, lots of wine. 
> 
> **ONE LAST THING:** It's not imperative that you've read _That One Night_ to understand any of this, technically, but you probably won't enjoy it quite as much, just fyi, considering the fact that this fic is essentially one giant inside joke between all my readers and I. :) 
> 
> **Musical Inspiration:** I could write you a list, but I listened to the same songs SO MANY TIMES OVER that I just said "fuck it," and made an 8tracks playlist, which can be found [here](http://8tracks.com/therentyoupay/let-s-make-a-night).
> 
>  **Beta'd** (mostly) by **ebonyquill**. You are such a trooper, Alison, I swear to god. D: 
> 
> Happy reading!

 

* * *

  _Let's make a night_  
 _you won't remember,  
I'll be the one  
you won't forget._  


\- “ **Timber** ” by Pitbull (ft. Ke$ha)

* * *

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

  
There was nothing more beautiful, he thought, than the sound of a crowd chanting his name.  
  
And, _oh—_ he had many. Captain. _King._ Prodigy. Playboy. _Cheat_.

Tahno.

His name surrounded him. It filled his head to the brim and rattled down his spine, pulsated through his chest, ricocheted under his skin. He rarely ever gave it; he was rarely ever asked. _There was a lot power in a name_ , he'd always been told, more so than just reputation and image—though those mattered, too. A name _meant_ something; it said a lot about a person by which name they chose to call another, by which name they, themselves, were called. A proper name demanded respect, _commanded_ it. It could strike fear. It could demonstrate appreciation— _adoration_. A name was equal to status.  
  
And if the beer bottle in his hand and the girls on his arms and the name echoing in his ears were any indication—

He was on top of the world.

  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
  
  
Or probably just on top of the table, but Tahno figured that it couldn't really be all that different.

   
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

* * *

**That one night**

_Tahno met Korra_.

* * *

“ _Tahno!_ ”  
  
The apartment was dark and thick with smoke, foggy with bright blasts of color and walls trembling with noise. He heard his name over the powerful bass, a small choir calling out to him from the couches and tables to the right; he raised a hand and passed on by, slipping through the crowd easily, though space was scarce and the people were many. He didn't waste his breath on countless _hellos_ ; the people around here, as Tahno knew full well, didn't come to _talk_.  
  
Someone handed him a beer before he even asked; he took it with his left hand, shook with his right, and moved on. The music was pounding and the waves of bodies were moving, lost in their own little worlds as the curling smoke and the dancing lights swirled around them. He nodded to someone he recognized across the wide room, but even that held an air of laziness. He was in no rush.  
  
He was flanked by two (familiar, reliable, beautiful, _irritating_ ) figures before he'd even made it to the far wall; heels high, faces painted ( _hands eager_ ), his two biggest fans noticed his free (empty) arms and gladly assumed their roles of filling them. (Tahno wasn't in the mood, really, but they did their jobs well, so he held out his arms to either side, and let them cling.) He took a stroll about the room, scoping out a space from which he could survey the rest of the party. It wasn't an easy feat, but eventually he took to standing near the back—clearly visible to all—but still just close enough to the kitchen—and, more importantly, the back door—in case he decided to leave this shit party, after all.  
  
Now. If only he could find—

“Oh. Great. _Now_ he decides to show up.”

—Tahno smirked.

(He loved it when he got exactly what he wanted.)

“Ming. Shaozu,” he drawled, dismissing the girls at his sides with a disarming smile, and then pointedly nodded toward the bar. Reluctantly, the girls went on their way, as quickly as they'd come. “I didn't think you'd be coming.”

"What? And get reamed by Coach for not bonding properly with the underclassmen?" Shaozu scoffed, with _heart_. "Not likely."  
  
"Though we _are_ surprised to find you here," Ming added, offering a single nod in greeting. He pointedly dropped his gaze to the empty wall space at Tahno's side, then raised it, immediately. "Alone."  
  
"Yeah," Shaozu squinted, obviously thinking much too hard. Tahno rolled his eyes and scowled, and then took a drink from his beer when he felt that it too closely resembled a grimace. "Where's the—ah… what was her name again?"  
  
"Doesn't matter," Tahno took another swig from his beer. "She's not coming."  
  
Shaozu and Ming shared a knowing look. _Trouble in paradise_ , they said with their eyes, right in front of him—but Paradise was never really Tahno's thing, anyway. (It's not _his_ fault they'd forgotten that. For whatever reason.)  
  
"So," Shaozu cleared his throat, a little awkwardly. "What are you in the mood for, then? Shameless debauchery? Sob-story consolation party? Maybe a little of both?"  
  
Tahno pinned Shaozu with a dry stare. "What's wrong with you?" he snapped.  
  
"What?" Shaozu asked defensively, raising a pair of placating hands, one of which was clutching an amber bottle. "I was just asking! I mean, it's perfectly normal to feel a little out of sorts after a break-up—"  
  
"We didn't break up," Tahno corrected firmly, a dangerous slant to his brow. "We weren't together."  
  
"Yeah," Shaozu nodded, frowning slightly. "Sure."  
  
Tahno didn't look completely satisfied with that answer, but as Shaozu actually kept his mouth shut afterward, he let it slide. Gulping down another swallow of beer, grimacing at the stale flavor collecting at the bottom, Tahno wiped his mouth dry with the skin of his wrist and scoffed against the blaring music. "Where the hell is the tequila?" he demanded.  
  
Ming shrugged beside him. "This is what they've got. Cheap beer and cheap vodka, though I did see some rum floating around here somewhere."  
  
"Dammit," Tahno muttered. " _This_ is why we don't come to the underclassmen parties."  
  
But Ming only looked at him reproachfully, and Tahno scowled into another sip. "Coach wants us to be supportive," he reminded them evenly, though truthfully, he didn't look all that tickled by the idea either. "It's a good show of solidarity for us to be here."  
  
"I'm not so sure Coach meant for us to get plastered with them," Shaozu pointed out needlessly. Tahno resisted the urge to smack him upside the head.  
  
"Coach is a realist," Ming replied, swirling the liquid in his bottle. (Tahno noticed that Ming had yet to take a drink since he'd approached his corner; he resolved to take care of that later.) "Someone has to keep the freshmen recruits in check."  
  
"Yeah, well, good luck with that," Tahno scoffed, downing the rest of his beer in one fluid motion. "I'm not here to play babysitter."  
  
" _Because we usually are_ ," Shaozu muttered. Tahno rounded on him.  
  
"What was that?" he demanded, and though Shaozu looked properly intimidated, he and Shaozu were _both_ still wearing matching scowls.  
  
"Quit sulking," Ming commanded, in that nonchalant way that only he was capable of; the _only_ way that Tahno ever tolerated. "We're here for the night. Deal with it."  
  
Tahno bit his cheek, if only to reign in the monstrous sneer that threatened to overtake him. (At least _some_ good had come from those stupid anger management classes, not that he'd ever admit it.) "Fine," he snapped, just as Shaozu echoed the same.  
  
"Aw, man," Shaozu whined a moment later, eyeing a small crowd across the room. "Who invited the _Wasps_ to this party?"  
  
Tahno's blood was boiling before he even turned his head, but once he was looking in that direction, sure enough, he saw them. _Dammit_ , he scowled, letting the sneer unfurl. _Not them again_.  
  
" _Freshmen_ ," Ming muttered disdainfully, and that was all he said.  
  
"It can't have been _ours_ ," Shaozu shook his head determinedly. "Nobody in their right minds would invite a couple of douchebag Wasps, not after they accused us of ch—"  
  
"Shut it, Shaozu," Tahno snapped, eyeing him with a warning glare. "Save it for the apartment, you idiot."  
  
Shaozu rolled his eyes, but listened for once. Regardless, Tahno's faint optimism for this night was dying more and more with each passing minute. The truth was that, unfathomably, he hadn't really even been in much of a mood to come to this party— _any_ party—in the first place. He would never have admitted it out loud, but he _was_ still a little shaken up by his latest fallout, and the aftereffects were still lingering, in the smallest shakes of his fingers, in the dark clouds in the farthest corners of his mind. And even after he buried that down— _deep,_ down _deep_ —the truth was that still, somehow… Tahno was bored.  
  
(And it was more than that, too—so much, _much_ more. There were things he just _didn't think about_ , not unless it was 3AM and he was drunk and half-naked in bed and probably not going to remember any of it, and he didn't know _where any of it had even come from._ He didn't know how or when it'd happened but, somewhere along the way, Tahno had started realizing that his glory days were coming to an end; a five-year program almost complete, three championships under his belt, plenty of notches in his proverbial bedpost and, with graduation steadily approaching, Tahno had accomplished almost all there was to accomplish in this stage of his life and, more and more and more and more, Tahno was faced with the question of: _What now?)_  
  
But Tahno was not here tonight to think about those things.  
  
He gripped the empty beer bottle in his hand, resolving to find some decent liquor at the earliest opportunity.  
  
"Yechh," Shaozu groaned, voicing enough dissatisfaction for them all. "This shit is nasty."  
  
"It's probably all they could afford," Ming pointed out reasonably, grimacing over his own drink as well.  
  
"It's still closer to what _we_ can afford, too," Shaozu reminded himself sullenly, stifling a sigh. "I swear it. One of these days, we'll be drinking nothing but the good stuff."  
  
"I will gladly hold you to that."  
  
Tahno's brow tightened as an idea began to slowly unfurl in his mind. "You know, the cheap liquor here wouldn't taste half as bad if the party wasn't twice as shit."  
  
Shaozu frowned, squinting one eye in thought, as he was apt to do. "Is that a math problem?" he asked uncertainly. "Because the only math I can handle while drinking is addition, and honestly, it's pretty late in the game for that, anyway."  
  
Tahno silenced him with a glare. _You idiot_ , he would have said, but his good mood was mostly restored—sort of—and he wasn't willing to relinquish it just yet.  
  
"How do you turn a shit-underclassmen party into a better one?"  
  
"Ah. Is that a trick question?"  
  
A smirk, slow and feral, uncurled across Tahno's lips.  
  
"Boys," he began, in that slow familiar drawl; Ming and Shaozu straightened, surprised by the switch. "What say you to a bit of _actual_ team solidarity?"  
  
Ming's brow quirked skeptically, but his attention was naturally piqued. "Meaning?"  
  
Tahno's smirk widened, and a familiar gleam of danger appeared in his eye. His hand struck out, suddenly, abruptly thrusting his empty bottle into the chest of an underclassman teammate who just happened to be walking by. The boy looked up, infuriated, then took note of who was glaring down at him... and hurriedly rushed off to procure another.  
  
Ming and Shaozu resisted a sigh, entirely unsurprised; they weren't very successful at hiding their disdain, or their anticipation.  
  
"Boys," Tahno began, voice low and thick with the ring of promise. "I think I'm the mood for some shameless debauchery, after all."

* * *

But after a few drinks in, Tahno was starting to realize that his plan wasn't nearly as fulfilling as it'd originally appeared.  
  
"Jesus," Tahno muttered beneath his breath. His head had started to go a tad fuzzy a little while ago, but apparently not enough. "How old are these underclassmen, anyway?"  
  
"Young," Ming answered, barely containing his sigh. "Funny the difference a simple five years can make."  
  
"Simple, my _ass_ ,” came an irritating voice from the side. Tahno did his best to ignore it. “Dude, I feel like we were freshmen just yesterday," Shaozu observed, tone half-disbelief, half-undeniable relief.  
  
Tahno gave him a solid glare, dry and annoyed. "You're _still_ a freshman."  
  
"And you still hold your liquor like one."  
  
"Enough," Ming cut in, this time sighing outright. "They're underclassmen. They can't help it. Cut them some slack."  
  
"Fine," Shaozu huffed, begrudgingly. "But promise me that this is the last time we attend a youths' party. I don't care what Coach says, man."  
  
"Tell me you did not just say _youths_ ," Ming dryly declared, expression remarkably unimpressed.  
  
"What? That's what they are! _You—_ "  
  
"Don't say it," Ming ordered. "Not again. _Never_ again."  
  
"It's like an awful guessing game," Tahno announced, disdainful and disgusted. Ming and Shaozu turned toward him; he clearly hadn't been paying attention to either of them, but they should have known better by now. _Honestly_. "I can't even tell if half of them are of age."  
  
Ming and Shaozu frowned at the room. No one immediately spoke up to disagree. "You mean of drinking age?" asked Ming.  
  
Tahno looked dubiously at a gaggle of girls in miniskirts not too far away. Their drunken giggling could be clearly heard over the music. "If only that were the case," he muttered.  
  
"Man," Shaozu grumbled, taking note of the general population as well. "Have they always looked this young?"

“Don't ask stupid questions.”

“I'm serious! You can't deny it, either. They look younger and younger every year.”

“That's the _point_ , moron. They're _freshmen_.”  
  
"This is ridiculous," Ming commented, though even he, himself, sounded doubtful and disappointed. "We're not even that much older."  
  
Shaozu grimaced and rubbed his arms, as if his skin might crawl away. "Jesus," he hissed. "Suddenly, I feel so… _old_."  
  
Tahno did not approve of this conversation.  
  
"Fuck this," he snapped. "Are we gonna get some girls or not?"  
  
Shaozu and Ming eyed him with surprise. "I don't know," Shaozu replied uncertainly—and then, something shifted in his face, subtly—and he demanded, rather pointedly, " _Are_ we?"  
  
Tahno paused. He wasn't so sure he liked Shaozu's tone. "What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
There was a beat of hesitation, and then Shaozu turned away in a huff. "You explain," he ordered snappily to Ming, who merely took a deep breath and turned to an impatient Tahno.  
  
"You declared this night to be a night of drinking and debauchery," Ming recapped, though Tahno felt that the tone did little to reflect the glory of his earlier words.  
  
"Yeah," Tahno said slowly, flicking a confused gaze toward Shaozu's stubborn back. "So?"  
  
"Our history together has proven that sort of thing this tends to result in the same pattern, time and time again: drinking for all, _debauchery_ for you."  
  
 _The fuck?_ Tahno didn't have time for this. "What are you talking about? You hook plenty."  
  
"Dude—picking up your scraps off the floor doesn't exactly count," Shaozu spun back around, annoyance settling into the very waves of his auburn hair. "You always get first pick."  
  
Tahno blinked, then reared back, fighting a smirk. "Doesn't the captain always?"  
  
"Do not make me punch you."  
  
"You have to admit," Ming nodded, considering the matter rather seriously, much to Shaozu's displeasure. "It does make for an interesting dynamic. Most girls are clearly interested in _you_ , specifically, from the very beginning."  
  
"Or disgusted," Shaozu sniped.  
  
"Either or," Ming shrugged, clearly finding it a non-issue. "But no one could deny that your name and your reputation give you a bit of an advantage."  
  
"Oh, please," Shaozu scoffed. "He walks into a room and half the job is already done!"  
  
"Why, thank you, Shaozu—I wasn't fully aware of how attractive you found me."  
  
"You asshole," Shaozu frowned irritably. Tahno couldn't help mentally comparing it to a pout. "I _meant—_ what I meant was—ninety-nine percent of the room already knows who you are, and knows your _reputation_ , so all you actually have to do is, you know—show up. And if for some godforsaken reason they don't recognize you on the spot, they've heard your name from somewhere or other and—voila. Instant chick-magnet."  
  
"That you even call it that is precisely why you _aren't_ one."  
  
"Ming—dude—some help?" Shaozu turned impatiently, obviously hoping for an ally. "I'm not crazy."  
  
"And neither is Tahno," Ming offered, finally taking a drink. "He knows exactly what you're talking about; he's just fishing for compliments."  
  
Shaozu's eyes narrowed. "Goddammit," he muttered. Tahno clapped a hand on Shaozu's shoulder with satisfaction; it was probably the closest sign of camaraderie he'd displayed all night, even despite the overbearing feel of manipulative smugness underlying it all. "I hate you so much sometimes," Shaozu grumbled.  
  
"Love me, loathe me—it's all the same to me," Tahno replied, knowing with bone-deep certainty that despite the flippant tone, truer words had never been spoken. "When it comes down to it though, you know who I am. That's the point."  
  
"Yeah, well, not everybody has a big flashy reputation to wave around, all right? Some of us have to _work_ for our conquests. Do you even remember _how_ anymore?" Shaozu demanded tetchily.  
  
"How what?" Tahno asked before sipping his beer, already bored. Strange. Being lauded had always seemed a bit more exciting than this.  
  
"How to pick up girls who aren't already throwing themselves at your feet."  
  
Tahno scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous."  
  
"I'm serious," Shaozu insisted, and Tahno watched, feeling a foreign trace of wariness creep down his spine, as a determined light filtered into his teammate's eyes. Even Ming was considering the conversation with renewed interest. "Think about it: when was the last time you picked up a girl who didn't already know who you were? Who didn't already _want_ you?"  
  
"You don't have to _know_ me to want me," Tahno pointed out.  
  
"You're missing my point," Shaozu said without missing a beat, finding himself more and more consumed by this concept with each passing moment. "I mean, yeah, it was one thing when we were freshmen and _no one_ knew who any of us were, but after five years of being at the top, it's like—it's too easy."  
  
Tahno quirked his brow incredulously. "Surely you're not talking about yourself."  
  
"Dammit, Tahno! Are you even listening to me?"  
  
"What are you getting at?" Ming asked Shaozu curiously, though Tahno had a feeling that the asshole already knew.  
  
"Look—all I want is for Tahno to find a girl who has no idea who he is," Shaozu solemnly began. "Try his usual moves and see where he ends up. A bit of an experiment, of sorts. Let's see if the King is really as good as good ol' swamp town thinks he is."  
  
"Your little experiment is pointless," Tahno huffed dismissively, staring down Shaozu with an impatient scowl. "One, the answer is obvious. And two, where would we even find someone who didn't know who we were?" They were in the _swamps_ , for chrissake.  
  
"You're a scientist, aren't you?" Shaozu demanded, already completely and wholly stuck on the idea. "And you, of all people, should know better than to take a theory as fact."  
  
"I never said it was _fact_ ," Tahno corrected. He cocked his head to the side, pretending to look thoughtful. "Perhaps more of a widely-accepted _truth_ , yes, but never fact."  
  
Shaozu deadpanned. "You're mocking me," he accused.  
  
"I'm humoring you."  
  
"Then humor this!" Shaozu demanded, and Tahno was surprised at his ferocity and determination. "I'm not even gonna bet you on it. I just want to see if you can even do it anymore… You know. Now that we're about to graduate," he added mischievously. "We're all gonna be starting out fresh soon enough as it is. Might as well see if you've lost your touch before you get hit with reality, am I right?"  
  
Tahno glared.  
  
"Fine," he snapped, biting his cheek to keep his sneer in place. Tahno looked down at Shaozu haughtily, and tried not to let his teammate's smug expression get under his skin. (Shaozu wasn't _supposed_ to get under his skin. Not for real.) He glanced between his two teammates, one expression curious, one expression victorious, and huffed, "I'm bored, anyway."

* * *

_So... this is college, huh?_

Korra had to admit.

It sort of sucked.

A laugh—bright and genuine—trickled past her ears, floating its way from the across the room, and a heavy sigh escaped her; Korra wondered how it was physically possible that, out of _all_ the voices in this crowded apartment, _hers_ always seemed to be the one that Korra was able to pick out among the rest. (Actually, she was pretty sure there was a psychology term for it. Her professor had just covered it last Tuesday. _What was it called again?_   Whatever. She was at a party—she wasn't going to think about it.)  
  
Sighing again, she let her shoulder lean more heavily into the open doorframe and watch the typical-college-party proceedings from across the crowded room. Korra was honestly still a little skeptical of her new roommate. (Asami _seemed_ nice enough, but there just wasn't very much they had in common.) _At least her dad sends awesome care packages_ , Korra thought, sipping her stale beer from a Solo cup. And Asami was the one who had gotten them into this party, after all.  
  
She frowned a little guiltily. Korra wasn't _normally_ the kind to take advantage of others; five packages of overstuffed cream cookies from a ridiculously oversized care package and a ' _Yes, I'm with the Hot Girl'_ ticket into a legit college party, however, she could handle.  
  
Or so she thought.

People had been flocking to Asami right and left all night and sure, she was used to it at school by now, even with as new as the school year still was, because most everyone knew about the rich, local Sato family and their beautiful debutante daughter. Korra didn't know why she'd expected anything differently _here_ , as if an an hour drive to the swamps to visit the campus of a _friend-of-a-friend_ and to eventually stay the night in her father's 'little' country cottage would make a difference; if Asami was considered impeccably gorgeous in a giant metropolis, she was sure to be considered impeccably gorgeous in a land of swamp water.  
  
"Figures," Korra muttered, feeling sorry for herself.  
  
What a lame way to spend her first college party… and here she'd been so excited about meeting new people and trying new things. A taste of real life, beyond a decade of homeschooling. _Now look at me_. Falling prey to insecurity and uncertainty—just like she never actually thought she would. _Okay,_ Korra thought suddenly, feeling the gears shift in her brain. All in all, she supposed that college hadn't _totally_ sucked so far. Only marginally. (Maybe.) The classes weren't so bad... and her scholarship was a huge plus.  
  
 _All right,_ she thought, even more decisively. _Enough of this crap. I'm going to enjoy this party. I'm gonna move out of this stupid spot and find somebody to talk to, or at least listen to, and I'm gonna show Asami that I'm not some loner loser who just stands by herself at parties, wallowing in self-pity. I'm gonna meet lots of people. In fact, I'm going to meet even_ _more_ _people than she will. I'm gonna have_ _fun_ _, dammit,_ _or so help me—_  
  
"Ugh," she muttered suddenly, unable to restrain herself after catching sight of something particularly painful. It looked like some new guy was chatting up her roommate, which wasn't a super big deal but— _Y_ _eesh_. Had he seen a mirror lately? How did anyone take him seriously under all that hair shine and eyeliner?  
  
They really seemed to be getting it _on_ , too.

 _Oh, for fuck's sake_ , she rolled her eyes.  
  
 _Enough of this,_ Korra decided, pushing away from the doorframe. She was going to find a guy who wasn't creepy as hell. She was going to find a guy who wasn't a total bro, and who maybe had something more to say than some cheesy, frat-boy pick-up line with a pun. (There had to be at least _one_ around here somewhere. At least. Right?) Well. She was gonna find one. And then she was gonna make out with him, or flirt with him.  
  
Or maybe both.

But probably not in that order.

* * *

What had started as an enticing way to rankle Shaozu's feathers was quickly becoming a major inconvenience.

A group of tittering girls were glancing his way, but Tahno was pointedly ignoring them. His head listed to the side, staring blankly out the window as sounds of partying assaulted him from every angle. At some point or other, he'd ended up in the living room, next to a rowdy game of pong. A few of the other guests had tried to approach him a few times, but it was clear to all that he was not in the most receptive of moods.

This challenge was stupid, he decided. What did he care whether or not he could get a girl that he didn't even want, just for the sheer principle of the matter? (He'd been down that road before; he wasn't a freshman anymore for a _reason_.) If he really wanted one, he'd get her—no problem. He'd never had any trouble picking up a girl. It wasn't going to change now.

 _Fuck this_. He shouldn't have even come to this party at all. He should never have come in the first place. He should leave _now_ , except he couldn't. He didn't want to let Shaozu win. ( _Couldn't_ let Shaozu win. It was simply unthinkable.) He was just—just _not_ in the mood to play this game, that was all. (The game was old. The rules were still the same, still just as easily broken, and he, always the winner.) It would have been ridiculous to say he was tired of it. (So he didn't say it. Not out loud.)

(And he was still fucked up from the girl that fucked him over, and he wasn't interested in messing around with a couple of underclassmen girls who were ready to throw themselves at his feet. He needed to get out of here. He needed to figure out what the hell he was doing with his life, but he _couldn't_ , and half the time he wasn't sure he even wanted to.)

“ _Motherfuckin' fuck!”_

It took Tahno a moment to realize that he hadn't been the one who'd shouted it aloud, although the sentiment was greatly mutual.

“Tahno!” someone called from behind. He turned his head, but didn't bother to move away from the window. “Come on, man! We're dying here—we need a secret weapon!”

He merely smirked, unbudging, and said, “Then don't start a game you can't finish.” He turned back to the window as loud cheers and laughter enveloped the room, and play resumed, however grudgingly—or poorly.

The glass was dirty with specks, and it looked even worse in the yellow-orange light of the street lamps from out front. Tahno resisted the urge to wipe them away, and wondered when life—when _he—_ had become so boring.

 _I was King_ , he remembered, then hastily corrected, _I am_. Shaozu's stupid challenge meant nothing; he could have any girl he wanted—or guy, for that matter—and not have to think twice about it. (So what if it'd been almost an hour and he hadn't found anybody worth pursuing yet—simply to make a point?) It wasn't his fault there was no one around worthy of his notice. _I'm not wasting my time._

Except— _except—_ he really, really was, or else he wouldn't even be at that party in the first place. _What a load of shit_ , Tahno thought suddenly, vehemently. He turned away from the window abruptly and made his way back toward the kitchen, ignoring the questioning looks from faces both familiar and not. ( _Where's he going?_ he heard someone whisper. _Is he always like this?_ )

Tahno strode into the kitchen with a determined air, when truly, he had no idea where the hell he was going. ( _What the hell am I doing? What am I supposed to—?_ ) The kitchen wasn't too crowded, speckled only with a few couples and clusters of people replenishing their drinks, and Tahno made a point of finishing off his latest beer and retrieving another one from the fridge. Once done, Tahno was at a loss.

He could go back and find that girl he'd started chatting up earlier, the one he'd found right after he and Shaozu made that stupid deal. The chick was undeniably hot, and more genuinely confident than any of the other girls he'd met, which was right up his alley, but Tahno was feeling off— _way_ off—and he couldn’t deny it any longer.

 _Too young to be taken seriously, too old to not have a plan; experienced and inexperienced, expected to have it all figured out, yet still wandering aimlessly without a fucking clue; college senior (and then some), Master's candidate, Team Captain, athletic star,_ _job_ _offers and researcher position opportunities lined up out the door—_ and none of it meant a thing.

Not to him.

“Hey—you all right, man?”

It took Tahno a moment to realize that someone was asking this of _him_ , and another to realize that he'd doubled over onto the kitchen counter, elbows resting on the top and his faced buried in his hands. _Fuck_ , he thought, as he stood and righted himself under the curious, thoughtful eyes of teammates. _Fuck_.

“Fine,” he muttered, stepping away from the counter. He slid his beer off the fake granite and walked on past, offering no more explanation than a nod. He was becoming rather adept at ignoring people's stares. _(Wasn't he always? He'd basked in them. Used to relish them, instead of ignore.)_

 _Fuck_.

Just a minute or two. That's all he needed. He just needed to get his shit together, and move on.

Striding forward, Tahno slipped out the back door, without a word to anybody. _  
_

* * *

Needless to say, it didn't work out quite the way Korra had planned.  
  
She tried talking to some guys and, of course, it sort of worked. They hit on her, she sometimes flirted back, and _sometimes_ , if she was really lucky, she was even a little interested; most of the time, they were either creepy or boring. Or both.

There was this one kid, though, with wavy, auburn hair who was pretty funny. A little drunk— _but who wasn't?_ —and a little quirky— _like she was any better?_ —but just as she was starting to feel like there might actually be some real connection, he'd been dragged off mid-conversation by a herd of other drunk, sweaty boys demanding a newmatch of beer pong, and that'd been that. _Ah_ , she'd breathed, nodding to herself with a sobering dose of resignation, and maybe even a small stab of jealousy. She was good at pong. (Well— _actually_ —she'd never tried. But she was pretty damn good at most everything, _so_ —)

 _Whatever_. _Turns out he's just another bro, like the rest of these showy college athletes._

But Korra was anything but a quitter.

* * *

“Oh, _Jesus—_ sorry!” Korra hissed, turning away abruptly, mortified. She _really_ hadn't meant to see all that, and for crying out loud, people actually did that in _public?_

All she'd wanted was some air.

What she got instead was a clear view of some random couple making out on the back porch swing— _and then some_ —and a whole lot of trouble for her efforts. (Which _weren't_ , actually, all that dedicated at all.) In fact, Korra had just been starting to wonder how much longer she could stay at this terrible party before she could get away with asking Asami to head back— _without_ sounding completely lame.

She was so frustrated with herself. This wasn't like her. Korra, who was fun and loud and the life of a party. Who liked attention and (perhaps, she admitted, showing off— _a little_ ) and making friends, and making people laugh and feel good about themselves.

It'd only been a week or two and she already felt so much more rigid, and resistant, and reluctant than ever before. And bitter.

 _What changed?_ she'd wondered to herself, as she slipped out the back door and into the dim porch light, and caught sight of a full-on _show_ to the left and, well, here she was, a little embarrassed and a little disgusted and impressed and jealous all at once.

And— _don't forget—_ a little lonely, too.

She opened her mouth, conceivably to rush out an apology, when—

“Don't bother. They're too high to even notice we're here.”

Korra nearly started again, and spun around to search for the source of the voice, heart still pounding.

There, in the faint lamplight of the porch, was a guy. He was standing off to the opposite side, leaning his elbows against the high railing of the porch, looking completely unperturbed. At first, she wasn't entirely convinced that the voice had come from him—he wasn't looking in her direction, after all, but rather, at the small stretch of boring, empty yard in front of him—and truth be told, he didn't exactly look to be the kind of guy who'd have a voice like that. It'd been impressively deep—especially for a pretty lanky guy like him.

Unsure of how quite to respond, Korra studied his profile curiously. Dark jeans and a simple white t-shirt, loose and v-neck, and dark hair: wavy, and a little long. He looked like he was holding something in his hand— _a drink, maybe?_ —and from this angle—from what she could see, at least—he looked decently attractive. A little thinner than what she normally liked, maybe, but not exactly _weak,_ from the look of it or, at least not quite _as_ lanky as she'd thought from first glance; his arms were pretty toned and his jaw was strong and sharp, plus his shoulders were rather broad, even if the general breadth of him wasn't so much. She couldn't tell how tall he was, since he was hunched over the railing, but she'd never cared much about height differences, anyway.

“Apparently,” she mused, sending a single curious glance back toward the amorous couple. When she looked back at the guy at the railing she saw that he had already turned away, and was staring at the grass in front of him. At least, that's what she thought he was looking at—if he was even really _looking_ at it at all. There was only the light of the porch, plus the few street lamps dotting the street all the way at the front of the house, and a light or two from the rooms of neighboring apartments throughout the small stretch of street. It wasn't anything like the city, Korra observed, disappointedly. 

Korra shifted her weight to the side, feeling even more awkward than before; all she'd wanted was to find a place where she could take some time to think, but it looked like the only available brooding space was already taken. _Whatever_. He wasn't paying her any attention. She wouldn't pay him any attention. They could both think in silence. That was fine with her.

(Or... at least she _thought_ it was.)

Korra's stiffened at the unexpected sound of a breathy laugh from not more than a few feet away; her eyes sought out the profile of the guy at the railing, and narrowed. _Is he... Is he laughing? At me?_ And then: _Jesus, not everything is about_ _you_ _, Korra._

She ignored him, as well as the itchy feeling at the back of her neck that set her instincts on alert, and focused on the soft silence of the night, a stark contrast to the loud music and mindless chatter from inside. If she listened hard enough, she could still make out the sounds of the couple behind her, well, _making out_ —so she didn't listen all that hard. And Korra didn't see what was so great about the grass, but she took a page from Railing Guy and locked her eyes onto it as well, and desperately tried not to imagine that it was something else—snow or cement, it didn't matter—and that was when she caught sight of him, shrewdly glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

Surprised by the sharpness of his gaze, Korra shifted towards him, staring right back. “What?” she demanded, suspiciously.

There was no way she was imagining it; he'd definitely been glaring at her. He was _still_ glaring at her, much more openly now, with a condescending exasperation that was wholly unjustified. He rolled his eyes and pinned her with an expectant look, one that made zero sense, and one that, truthfully, made Korra want to slam his head against the railing. _Well. So much for making friends at this party_ , Korra thought bitterly, and continued to glare at him, arms crossed over her front, a scowl set firmly over her face.

The guy made a gesture with his hand, a slow and impatient flick of his wrist, and let out a scoff; she wondered if he was even aware of the way he was holding out his hand, palm facing up, elbow resting on the wood—as if he was expecting something to be handed to him. She didn't know the guy, but it seemed to be a sort of natural state for him. “Do you mind?” he snapped.

Korra blinked. “Excuse me?”

She'd already admitted that she didn't know many people at this party, but Korra was _certain_ that this guy didn't live there; technically speaking, she had just as much of a right to the brooding porch as he did. Or the really affectionate couple behind them. _Ugh_.

She considered actually saying so, before she got caught up in her thoughts of— _if you can't make friends, you should at least_ _try_ _not to make enemies—_ and, of course, before she realized that it was probably pointless anyway, since he was barely sparing her a second glance. He was staring straight ahead now, evidently determined to not even bother with her. She felt irrationally annoyed.

 _No... Not irrationally_ , she defended lightly, feeling another curious wave of bitter disappointment burn hot in her chest. _Is it really so hard to look at someone when you're talking to them?_ she demanded, to no one. Maybe that was part of the problem, she reasoned; all of these young and desperate college kids, locked in the same rooms, all desperate for the same attention. Everyone was willing to take, but no one was willing to give. ( _Maybe that's why you're so lonely_ , a little voice whispered, but she stamped it down, harshly.)

A heavy sigh released her, without her consent. “Fuck this,” she whispered softly, then strode forward to the far side of the railing, lanky-dark-hair Railing Guy, be damned. It put her much closer to the very _active_ couple, but at this point, Korra figured a little overly-public display of affection was probably the lesser of two evils. She plunked her elbows onto the wood and let herself rest there, drinking in the last vestiges of muggy, summer night air. Autumn would soon be settling in, and then winter, and spring, and she would continue to go through the cycle, to go through the motions over and over and _over_ and what if she didn't _want_ this? What if she wasn't _happy_ here? Korra thought about all that had happened to her in this night alone, and all that had happened since she started college, and wondered: _Is this all there is?_

_Fuck this._

Tomorrow. _Tomorrow_ , Korra thought, she would get on the ball; she would start actively looking for other groups to join, for hobbies to pick up. She didn't have to be lonely or miserable. Not for much longer, anyway. What were people always telling her? That she only got out what she put in, or something? She hadn't been paying very much attention until now because, well, most of the time things had worked out for her just fine, regardless of how much work or not she put into it. (And she did work hard—she worked _so_ hard.) But for all the years that Korra had spent wishing to be out on her own and to figure out who she was _without_ the constant hovering, and direction and guidance, the truth was that Korra had done very little to establish herself as an individual, rather than an awkward loner, when finally presented with the chance. (Not that there was anything wrong with being alone. She liked it, sometimes. She, of all people, could appreciate the art of being alone, as the privilege was so rarely granted her before.) But this whole issue was going to change. Korra didn't care about _belonging_ , per se; she just wanted a connection of some kind, even if it was only one. She liked people, and she liked big groups and lots of energy—but she wasn't as greedy as she used to be. All she really needed was _one_. One friend. She wanted to find somebody who might be able to understand her, one day.

Korra began to feel warm all over, and a small smile fought its way to her lips. _There_. She knew all she'd needed was a few minutes of fresh air. Her veins were thrumming with renewed determination... Maybe not more confidence, just yet, but in her case they'd always gone hand in hand. She would figure this all out. And she'd make friends along the way, somehow. She just needed to find the right—

 _Ew_ , Korra thought suddenly, trying not to stare. A sudden movement to her right had inadvertently brought her eyes to Railing Guy mid-thought, and she finally spotted what it was that he seemed to be holding in his other hand. That was another college trend she was still adjusting to: smoking.

She hadn't meant to scoff aloud, and she didn't even realize she _had_ until his eyes slanted toward hers; she was still inspecting the cigarette in his hand with curious distaste from across the long stretch of railing, watching the small smoke trial swirl through the humid air, when he spoke.

“You got a problem?” he asked tersely, flicking ashes to the ground with a quick slip of his fingers. She wondered if the next drag he took was specifically for her benefit, long and slow, but again... Not everything was about her.

But then again—it was _weird_ ; his eyes were narrowed, pointed in her direction, yet he didn't seem to be seeing _her_ at all. It felt like everything he did was borne from some convoluted mix of trying to get a reaction out of her and ignoring her completely. _What pleasant company_ , Korra huffed, already writing him off. _Whatever_. She'd come outside to clear her head, and she had; better to go back inside now, when her spirits were high, and before the smoke slithered in her direction.

Except his voice cut through her thoughts once more, low and accusing, indifferent yet coated with scorn, and Korra couldn't help but feel offended when he huffed and spitefully remarked, “I don't need any of your judgment, all right?”

Korra tensed, glaring at him from her post. “I didn't say anything,” she argued, but her eyes flitted down once more to the cigarette in his hand of their own accord. When they returned, his gaze was meaningfully arrogant—disdainful, victorious, _annoyed_ —and she was really beginning to hate the whole _you're not worth my time, but I'm gonna proceed to irritate you, anyway_ routine. That's what toddlers did. And cats.

Hm. Maybe she should have foregone that last pity-party drink.

“This is actually quite common where I'm from,” he drawled, a wave of sarcastic disdain. One brow quirked high, looking at her expectantly; Korra would have said 'critically', except for the slightly _off_ way he looked at her, like there was a glaze over his gaze, blocking her from his sight, or at least distorting her image. Perhaps he'd had already one too many drinks, too. It didn't matter, because the grass was apparently was a lot more interesting to look at than she was, anyway.

She didn't know what it was—and maybe it was everything, all mixed-up together—but _something_ snapped.

“Yeah,” Korra scoffed. “Whatever. I'm an athlete. I don't have the luxury of putting that sort of shit into my body.”

Railing Guy gave her another sideways glance. His eyes were laughing at her, but Korra didn't get what was so funny. She crossed her arms—a defensive, instinctive gesture that had served her well for years—and suddenly, there was a curious, predatory sort of feel about his gaze that Korra wasn't so sure she liked.

“You, ah... You play here?” he asked casually, yet _not,_ giving another flick of his burning cigarette. (And _what the hell?_ What a random-ass question.)

Korra frowned, and narrowed her eyes uncertainly. “No,” she replied, a little stiffly. “I don't go here.”

“Ah,” he nodded as he looked away again, suddenly very thoughtful. _Calculating is more like it_ , she thought disapprovingly. What a weird dude. _All right. Time to leave this asshole and get back inside_. There was a party to be had, after all, and Korra was on a mission.

“What do you play?” he asked, halting her exit.

 _Chinese checkers_ , Korra thought snappily, but caught herself before it slipped out. She doubted he really cared about the real answer, anyway—most people didn't, she'd learned—but she shrugged and said, “Intramurals,” because, although not technically true, it was probably the easiest way to explain. She was active in many ways, but had never really been on a team of her own before. Her lifestyle hadn't allowed the time for it.

There was a beat of silence as he digested that, and then a huff—a little amused, and more than a little degrading. Korra fumed, surprised, as he quickly replied, “What? Couldn't make a real team?”

 _What the fuck?_ she gaped at him, head tilting slowly to the side, knowing in her heart-of-hearts that he was just _lookin'_ to be punched. _Is this guy for real?_ Korra rose an incredulous brow, forcing her fists to relax. Then she scoffed. _Shows how much you know_.

“On the contrary,” Korra muttered, and she might have sounded disdainful if she wasn't so damn tired all of a sudden. She thought of the scholarship board and her parents and the rest of her family, her community, and all the boxes that life's obligations had funneled her into. “I made too many,” she admitted, and wondered whether she'd revealed anything at all... or too much.

He looked up at her then, but by that point, it was a lost cause; Korra was staring pointedly in the direction of the backyard, and withheld a smirk when she felt his eyes finally swerve to her face and _stay_ there. _Take that_ , she thought, with great satisfaction; petty or not, she she didn't care.

“What do you play?” he asked again.

“Checkers,” she said and— _ah._ Fuck. Well, it'd been nice while her restraint had lasted, at least.

Curiosity compelled her, and Korra glanced his way; he was looking at her now, brow quirked high with a distinct lack of amusement— _no sense of humor, obviously_ —and an impatient frown. She shrugged a little, not entirely able to squash her smirk, so instead it came out as some sort of smile, a little delinquent and a little obstinate. It didn't feel as devious as it could have been, but she hoped it was at least partly patronizing, all the same. _My specialty._

That's when it shifted.

She wasn't sure whether it was the light in his eyes— _from the street lamps, the street lamps_ —or the way he inched, just slightly, in her direction, eyes suddenly curious, sparking with interest, or maybe when he rose up and used those fairly-toned arms to push himself off the railing to a standing position, so that she finally got a glimpse of just how tall he really was—

 _Shit_ , Korra thought, as her smile faltered. It felt like a bucket of cold water had been poured over her, crashing down, and it occurred to her: _I recognize him_.

“Hey, uh,” Korra said suddenly, surprising them both. “Not that this little chat hasn't been a total blast or anything, but I'mma head back inside. See you around.” _Or not_.

She thought she heard him say something as she opened the door, but the music was already blaring back out onto the porch, and she wasn't really dying to turn back around and ask him to clarify.

Because as it turned out, she'd just met the dude who'd been hitting on her roommate.

* * *

 

Korra was already having enough trouble with her roommate as it was. She was _not_ going to add this to the mix.

* * *

Ming and Shaozu looked more than a little shocked.

Tahno knew they were quite obviously daunted by his sudden enthusiasm for the challenge... and he had a sneaking suspicion that _they_ had a sneaking suspicion as to why.  
  
"You found someone," said Shaozu, a little breathlessly in his disbelief. _Ah_ , Tahno smirked. _Yes._ _The sweet smell of disappointment_.  
  
"That was quick," Ming observed, without any real emotion tied to it. He sounded fairly surprised but, as usual, only marginally invested, and Tahno couldn't even blame him; the game was clearly over.  
  
"What can I say?" Tahno shrugged, as a breath of haughty laughter leaked out.  
  
"This is… bullshit," Shaozu muttered, face scrunching with irritation. "Who is it?"  
  
"Now, Shaozu—"  
  
"Seriously, man. Who the fuck did you find?"  
  
Tahno's eyes narrowed slightly at Shaozu's tone… but he wasn't going to bother with informing him of his misstep. He would be reminded soon enough, in other ways. In much more _effective_ ways.  
  
Tahno tossed his head to the side, casually flicking his hair. He played with the idea of taking his time in answering, but as soon as he turned away from Ming and Shaozu, his eyes moved of their own accord, quickly scanning the room. _Ah,_ he breathed, nodding across the way, toward the opposite wall. He turned back to his teammates, making sure their attentions were caught, and then back to the girl he'd met on the back porch. _There_.  
  
Shaozu and Ming stared, eyes wide.  
  
"That one," Tahno smugly declared.  
  
Shaozu, he was delighted to see, was sulking more than ever.  
  
"Are you—are you fucking kidding me?" he groaned suddenly, while Tahno looked down at him in surprise. He _was_ expecting a show of surrender—one worthy of his victory—but this reaction was a little out of the blue. ( _Speaking of—_ Tahno's eyes traveled back to the girl across the room, to the pair of eyes locked in furtive conversation with another girl, the one he'd spoken to earlier, briefly. One who was considerably hotter, decidedly more beautiful, but strangely not _quite_ as attractive.)  
  
Tahno briefly wondered if he was going senile.  
  
"You dislike freshmen girls as a general rule," Ming reminded him.  
  
"What?" Tahno snapped, still watching her. "She can't be that young," he argued, but still, his brows pulled downward. A little less assuredly, no less abrasively, he asked, "How old do you think she is, anyway?"  
  
"Does it matter?" Ming asked, brow quirked high. "You're probably half a decade older than most of these girls."  
  
"You'd probably still bang most of them," Shaozu added sullenly, with considerably less enthusiasm than before. Tahno slanted an irritated glance in his direction, but chose not to comment. Yet.  
  
"You know, her roommate looks like she might be a bit older," Ming observed, subtly eyeing them over the rim of his bottle.  
  
"Roommate?" Tahno said quickly. "How do you know they're roommates?" Shit. Had Ming been talking to her, too?  
  
Ming rolled his eyes. "Anyone can see that," he informed him, and his _attempt_ at patience did not go unnoticed, though it was not nearly enough to be fully appreciated. "Even you, if you were to actually look." Tahno scowled, but said nothing.  
  
"All right, creeper," Tahno snapped, then took another irritated swig from his beer. "What else can you tell me about them?"  
  
"Oh, no," Shaozu butt in. "He's on his own for this one. No cheating."  
  
"Will you fucking _stop that_?" Tahno hissed. "Do _not_ say that word with Wasps around. _Idiot_."  
  
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with Shaozu on this one," Ming apologized, without really apologizing. "I'm afraid I'm far too invested in seeing how this experiment plays out with as few external influences as possible." _Great._ _Now_ _he's invested._  
  
"You're a bunch of dicks," Tahno accused sharply. "Both of you."  
  
"Tahno, for chrissake, just go after her roommate!" Shaozu insisted suddenly, leaving Tahno at a complete and total loss. " _She_ , at least, looked like she was into you. Earlier."  
  
His eyes narrowed. _What the hell?_

"What makes you think the other one _isn't_?"  
  
"Please. That girl is clearly too good for you," Shaozu scoffed. Tahno's mouth opened and curled into a forceful sneer, but Shaozu paid it no heed. "I'm telling you, man—it's a lost cause. That girl looks wicked strong and I doubt she's gonna put up with any of your crap. She's gonna chew you up and spit you out like a mutated bat.”

“What the _hell_?”

“I'm tellin' you, man—she's got spitfire aura raging all over her! Trust me— _I_ know about these things."

"Yeah, that's quite the diagnosis from a bona fide wallflower," Tahno sneered.  
  
"Dude—I'm just looking out for you!"  
  
Tahno leaned back. _The fuck?_  
  
"Never in a hundred years would I believe that. What the hell happened to w _anting_ to see me fail?" he asked slowly, eyes piercing and calculating.  
  
"It's not like I want to spend the whole night watching you make a complete fool out of yourself either," Shaozu snapped, and Tahno felt his hackles raise. "The roommate is much hotter, anyway. Just go for the roommate and save us all the pain of watching you fall all over yourself."  
  
"What—so you can try to take the other one?" Tahno demanded, eyes flashing. Shaozu actually stepped back, surprised at his intensity. "Likely fucking story."  
  
"Tahno—!" Shaozu hissed, flabbergasted. "There are _plenty_ of other girls who are into you! What the hell difference is it going to make if _one_ girl—"  
  
"This isn't just about _one_ girl," Tahno snapped, then shifted his eyes from side to side, taking in his surroundings. More quietly, innocuously, he repeated, "This isn't just about one girl."  
  
Shaozu blinked, rapidly. "Then what the fuck _is_ it about?"  
  
"I have a feeling that with our rapidly approaching graduation, Tahno is beginning to feel the implications of his age," Ming added. "For it appears that the end of our vast glory days is steadily approaching."  
  
Tahno rounded on Ming with a fearsome glare. "That's enough outta you," he snapped.  
  
"Are you crazy?" Shaozu demanded with a hiss. "You've half the room dying for your attention and you go for the one who looks strong enough to demolish you? Because you feel _old?_ "  
  
 _And washed-up_ , Tahno's mind added, but that wasn't really important.  
  
Instead, Tahno straightened. Gathering all of the arrogance he had within him, pulling it straight from his core, Tahno let it pour into each and every word.

"Come, Shaozu," he drawled slowly, silently stamping down his irritation beneath a layer of conceit. "Where is your sense of challenge?" he replied haughtily, giving Shaozu another pat on the shoulder, a gesture caught in a mix between condescension and warm familiarity. "Don't tell me you have so little faith."  
  
"I think it's the opposite, actually," Ming observed keenly, while Shaozu turned on him with a ferocious glare. "Something tells me Shaozu _was_ rather hoping to score that one, himself."  
  
 _Oh?_  
  
Tahno turned to Shaozu with renewed interest, stamping down the spark of victory and realization that spiked at his brain. "Is that so?" he smirked, letting his amusement rise to the surface; what he didn't show, however, was something that he buried down, deep within his rocky consciousness.  
  
(He refused to name it _fear._ )  
  
"You don't have to be a dick about it," Shaozu snapped, refusing to look at either of them.  
  
"I am rarely any other way," Tahno pointed out, letting an unapologetic grin overtake his face.  
  
"I am afraid I have to agree," Ming sighed, exasperated.  
  
"You know, Shaozu,” Tahno taunted, perhaps taking it a little too far. His mind whispered, _Quit while you're ahead_ , but he'd never paid much attention to his conscience before, so he continued, voice was slippery with mockery, “If you'd really prefer, I _could_ throw you a bone. I know how you feel about scraps, but I'm sure you'd—"  
  
" _All right!_ " Shaozu snapped, finally pushed beyond his limits. "All right, _fine_ ," he growled with a pout. "You want the new girl so badly, go ahead and fucking take her. You'll probably do it, anyway, whether I like it or not. No need to fucking rub it in."  
  
"Thank you for your support," Tahno said with mock-solemnity, barely able to contain his mirth. "A true teammate, you are."  
  
Shaozu frowned and mocked, "I am rarely any other way."  
  
Tahno merely smiled, this time much more relaxed; the balance— _although not ever having been fully tipped, just precariously close to slipping_ —was once again properly restored. All was right again in the world.  
  
"All right, men," Tahno smirked, taking a swig from his beer and unceremoniously passing it off to Ming, who took it wordlessly with a blank—but unsurprised—deadpan glare. "Time for the captain to welcome the new recruit."  
  
Shaozu sighed, disappointed and annoyed. "Are you chasing after a girl, or amassing a crew for your pirate ship?"  
  
"That knowledge is a captain's prerogative," Tahno winked, then adjusted his shirt and ran a hand through his dark hair, thick with smoke.  
  
"No privileges for the first mate, then?" Shaozu asked sourly.  
  
"Ming hasn't asked," Tahno replied, smiling with slow delight as Shaozu fumed and Ming rolled his eyes. "But, as always, we appreciate you taking one for the team."  
  
Shaozu's mood only darkened at the word ' _take,_ ' but it couldn't be helped; Tahno was enjoying himself too much.  
  
"When the hell are you gonna leave one of the really good ones for the rest of us, huh?" Shaozu demanded lowly. He looked truly upset when he added, "She probably won't even care who you are!"  
  
Tahno ignored the uncomfortable sensation swirling in his gut. He focused on his goal. His _challenge_. Wasn't that the whole _point?  
  
_ "Well, what a coincidence,” he smirked. “I won't really care to find out who she is, either.”  
  
"You don't even deserve to," Shaozu muttered.  
  
"Ah, on the contrary, dear Shaozu,” he smirked. “I've always gotten what I deserve.” _And usually never any more than that._

“Yeah? And do you deserve to get the crap beaten out of you?”

“All _you_ need to know is that _I_ know all I need to know about my opponent to win a game," Tahno smirked, reveling in Shaozu's confusion. Almost gleefully, Tahno flicked him across the nose. _Serves him right for thinking he might best me._ "And I just so happen to be a player who never fails to score,” Tahno reminded him. “I'll be expecting a congratulations on my win, later."  
  
As he walked off, he could hear as Shaozu scowled and said, "I really preferred it when he was talking about pirates."

* * *

Korra didn't know what the hell kind of alternate universe she'd just stepped into, but she wanted it to _stop_.

One minute she was all by herself, uselessly moping around in self-pity with a half-empty beer cup, and then she went and met some weirdo on the back porch and now—and _now—_ it was like she couldn't make it stop. A little over a half hour before, she'd been dying for some attention—some real, genuine human interaction for once—and _now_ —

It'd started with a simple conversation with some guy she'd noticed standing by himself near one of the windows in the front room, a few minutes after she'd come inside. There were a good number of people in the room, crowded in little clusters of laughing faces, but he was standing off to the side, looking rather thoughtful and maybe a little bored, which— _normally_ —Korra wouldn't have thought twice about. Korra knew what it was like to need a moment to think, to get a little bit of space when the everyday pressures became a little too much— _but she knew, also, that sometimes all you wanted was for someone to be brave enough to just, reach out—_ and she decided to go out on a limb, and try.

What happened next was probably the easiest conversation she'd engaged in all night. It was clear that he was a bit older, but she'd never cared much for that sort of thing—she'd been constantly surrounded by people who were older than her, nearly always—and he didn't seem to mind Korra's age. It was a calm and quiet conversation, based on really nothing at all, but it spread warmth through Korra's veins and brought a smile to her lips on more than one occasion. (It was nice to see him smile, too, and to know that she'd done something to help put it there.)

Minutes passed, and Korra found herself growing more comfortable. Their easy banter seemed to put both of them more at ease, and any barriers that had been placed up instinctively in the act of meeting a stranger began to break down, slowly but surely. It helped, too, when she found out that he didn't attend this swamp-of-a-school either; as it turned out, he was actually the captain of a rival sports team, which Korra found to be a rather delightful coincidence **.** (“Ah. Just when I thought I'd finally found something redemptive about this school, after all,” he joked, which sent warmth flooding to her face.) They commiserated over how small the area was, and how uncomfortably muggy it was, even for mid-September. They talked about how they missed the crowded city streets of their own universities, brimming with life and action and people, and the culture and opportunities that such urban life provided—more than just a crowded house-party for those who lived in the middle of nowhere, in a place that (due to the “ _nature_ ” of the environment) had little else to offer in the ways of nightlife and merriment. He was sort of witty, and talked smart, and acted quick—which Korra rather liked.

And then _he_ showed up.

Or rather—Railing Guy _kept_ showing up, over and over, in the peripherals of her vision.

At first she thought it was just her imagination. Or maybe a stream of coincidences. She first caught sight of him across the living room, surrounded by a flock of girls in tight jeans and low-cut tops, laughing at something he said. (She'd rolled her eyes, scoffing with annoyance, and had to apologize to her newest conversational companion with an awkward, half-formed explanation that she probably wouldn't have believed either.) And then she'd seen him again by the window, smirking and chatting with one of Asami's sort-of friends, while Korra's own new friend—the Wasps' captain, _right_ —had slipped into the kitchen to get them both another drink. Then sometime later, when she'd started to grow bored of what was tragically becoming disappointingly flat, superficial conversation, and after she had decided to excuse herself from the Wasp once and for all, she'd rounded the corner and caught a brief glimpse of _him_ in a darkened hallway, standing dangerously close to yet another girl against the wall. (He'd been situated oddly close to where she'd been standing with the Wasps' captain, almost as if he'd positioned himself specifically where she might end up—to where she might see him—but that was stupid and _again, Korra, the world doesn't revolve around you_.)

So she was back to Square One—literally, against the same doorframe—when she found him surrounded by a new flock of people in a corner of the living room by the beer pong table, and _for goodness' sake, he has the attention span of a fucking goldfish._

Korra scoffed in disgust as she took another sip from her newest Solo cup. (She'd poured it herself, and it was _strong._ ) Stupid Railing Guy with his stupid jawline and his stupid hair. And stupid posse. ( _He makes it look so easy_.) He was obviously as superficial as his hairstyle; a bit of a player, she'd reckon, and _definitely_ not worth her (continued) notice. Their interaction had been very brief, but those five minutes had cemented all she'd needed to know about his character, and this smooth-talking portrait of a lady-killer was not doing anything to change her mind. No matter how much she liked or didn't like his arms. Or his neck. Or jaw. ( _Dammit_. She might have already mentioned his jaw.) Anyway, it didn't matter, because he was obviously a womanizer, and she didn't have time for that shit, and _for chrissake, look at him—_ standing there in the corner and letting all those people flock to _him_ , never moving an inch for anybody, and the whole lot of them, just eating it all up.

“What a dick,” Korra muttered to herself, glaring at the corner.

“Yeah, I'd defend him... except he really is.”

Korra started, not having realized that she'd commented out loud. She had a terrible habit of doing that. “Um,” Korra began, feeling her tongue grow thick and fuzzy with her latest sip of alcohol. She admittedly hadn't done a whole lot of speaking in the last few minutes, and she vaguelyhoped that she hadn't skewered her ability entirely with all the alcohol she'd been downing in her frustration. Belatedly, she realized that she should probably switch back to water for a bit. Or Gatorade. _Jesus—say something!_ “Sorry,” she managed, and she didn't _think_ she was slurring. Not yet, anyway. “Do you know him?”

It was the same kid from earlier, the guy with the auburn-ish hair who'd been pulled away to play pong. He took a step closer and gave a little shrug, and he seemed different than before; the first time she'd talked to him, he'd been so upbeat and quirky—it was one of the reasons why she'd been so drawn to him in the first place. Now, he seemed a bit subdued... reserved, even.

“We're teammates,” he answered, but didn't dive into the specifics. Korra glanced between him and Railing Guy— _him,_ showered with attention and admiration, and auburn-haired guy, stuck standing next to her on the opposite end of the room, watching. He didn't say much, but Korra felt like he'd shed a whole lot more light on the dynamic than he probably realized. He took a mighty swig from his cup, downing the rest of his drink; Korra couldn't really blame him.

“Is he always like this?” Korra asked, before she'd even realized that she'd been wondering.

He gave another shrug, an uncomfortable, stilted raise of his shoulders that looked horribly wrong on someone who had seemed so carefree and laid-back just an hour before, and Korra suddenly felt really annoying. She'd really enjoyed talking to this guy about all sorts of stuff before, and she didn't like that _now_ she only seemed capable of asking questions about _him_. That probably wasn't what his teammate needed to hear, and it definitely wasn't what she needed to know. She wasn't even interested in the answers, aside from a morbid sense of curiosity. She wasn't.

“So, how did your game go?” Korra asked suddenly, twisting her body so that it no longer faced the unfortunate gathering on the other side of the room. Auburn-haired Guy stiffened slightly at the abrupt movement, looking uncertain over the sudden change of pace; she tried to keep her stance relaxed, but his strange uptightness was making _her_ feel uptight, and really, she'd already been feeling out-of-place enough as it was. She'd thought it wouldn't hurt to try... but maybe this was a mistake.

“Lost,” he admitted, face impassive, and for a whole second, Korra had no idea how to react. But then a small, tentative smirk slid slowly over his lips, and he added, with a strangely-reassuring dose of self-effacing humor, “Horribly.”

Korra looked up at him, feeling her own mouth quirk upwards. “You sound like you're not very used to losing,” she noted.

Something flickered in his expression, too quick for Korra to catch. She thought he might have glanced toward his teammate, but his eyes were on hers the next moment when he stepped forward, just the tiniest inch. He wasn't as close as he could have been, but Korra's breath still caught in her throat. There was a heat in his eyes that wasn't there before.

And Korra felt very warm indeed when he leaned down and whispered, almost conspiratorially, into her ear:

“Depends on the game.”

* * *

This was so not going according to plan.

Between the Wasps' Captain cock-blocking him at every turn and too many failed escape attempts from his Two Biggest Fans— _goddammit_ , he wished he'd never allowed them into his sight, however many months ago—not to mention warding off every doting, wannabe-underclassman trying to suck up to him every minute of his life, Tahno had barely had a spare moment to _breathe_ , let alone make any moves on the girl he was supposed to be winning over. (The girl he was _going_ to win over.) Normally, busting any Wasp's chops was _not_ out of his range of Low-and-Maybe-Despicable Things He Was Willing to Do, but Coach had been _painfully_ clear about the consequences of breaking his parameters for inter-team 'interactions,' even off the record, and his anger management coach was turning out to be _not_ the most lenient of men; this girl may have been reasonably hot, and this challenge may have been indubitably _vital_ , but he wasn't about to fuck up his future— _whatever it looked like_ —over some shitty, worthless rivalry and some fuck-formed challenge that he wasn't going to give a fuck about in a few months, anyway.

At least he'd thought so, for the whole of an hour, before shit really started getting out of hand.

 _What the hell are they even_ _ talking _ _about?_

Tahno had doubted the Wasps' capability of human thought on a number of occasions over the years, and had always despised them greatly on a matter of general principle, but it seemed that such intellectual limitations were enough for _her_. (Who knew—maybe she had a thing for bulky, brainless oafs?) _Maybe she doesn't know any better_ , Tahno thought, sipping agitatedly from his cup, glaring over the top of some girl's head at the chattering couple on the other side of the room. Ming did say she was pretty young, after all, even if she didn't necessarily look it. (Because now, after a disgusting amount of careful observation, Tahno had been able to piece together the clues that he hadn't been able to catch outside on the back porch; the gentle shifting of weight from foot to foot, the uncertain bite of her lip before she spoke. The brief pause as she gathered her thoughts, like it was difficult for her to be choosy about her words, but she tried to be, anyway. The inkling that she didn't quite fit in this world, but she was _here_ , and trying to make the best of it.) He'd seen it all before, he told himself. Typical freshman, just the kind he usually avoided; he wasn't sure whether he should be surprised or resigned, given his age and his dilemma, but then there was something just _slightly_ different about her, something that he couldn't put his finger on, that told him _no_ , she wasn't typical, she wasn't _quite_ like anybody else at all. Like she was going to be somebody, someday.

Or maybe just because she was hot.

Anyway, she was here, and she was probably still talking to that asshole, though not for much longer.

(Freshman or no, experienced or _no_ , it was very possible she was enduring Wasp company becauseshe'd simply never been shown how things _could_ be.

And Tahno was going to change that.)

“Fuck this,” he hissed beneath his breath, startling the trio of girls before him. Thoughtlessly, Tahno pushed forward through the crowd— _anger management, be dammed;_ a large group of people had trickled into the room a few minutes before, blocking her from his line of sight, and he only barely managed to avoid barreling through them to the open doorframe on the other side. He didn't care if the Wasp was still there. If anything, if he _was_ still there— _even better_.

Except, he wasn't.

And neither was she.

* * *

So maybe Korra was the kind of girl who couldn't handle being with a guy her own age... _maturity-wise, physically, or maybe even both._ Maybe she _needed_ to seek out people who were a bit older, a bit more settled, a bit more secure in themselves. For the most part, Korra was pretty damn sure of herself—until you set her down next to a rich, beautiful, exceptionally kind and clever roommate, _but anyway_ —and she had a feeling that if she couldn't find a partner— _friend, lover, something in between?_ —who matched her in such things, it wasn't bound to last very long.

Her Auburn-haired Friend, as it turned out, was indeed a few years older, though he was technically one of the youngest seniors on his team. He'd already supplied her with his name, _twice_ , but it was so hard to hear over the drone of the room, and she was strangely embarrassed to ask again. Anyway, he was funny, but she'd already figured that out, and he had a way of making her feel at ease no matter what he did—even in the same moments that he made her feel awkward, or _warm_ , or a dizzying combination of the two.

Like his no-longer-mentioned counterpart, he seemed to know everybody at the party—or rather, everyone seemed to know _him—_ and he flitted from one room to the next with her at his side, handling the endless attention with all the grace of a bona fide drama queen, though he looked rather surprised when she'd made that very observation out loud. Almost embarrassed, even, which was an interesting— _adorable_ —look for him. She had a feeling that he wasn't very used to receiving _this_ kind of attention—especially the center of it.

As the night progressed and the drinks continued to flow, Korra began to feel even more comfortable—and while she had a feeling that the cheap vodka _helped_ , she knew that it wasn't the whole reason why. In fact, she began to grow _so_ comfortable that she began to wonder if this— _this_ , being her and this guy—was something she actually wanted to... well.

Pursue.

She wasn't inexperienced, and she wasn't a prude, and— _very honestly-speaking_ —her newfound companion _was_ in incredibly good shape. And he was very generous with his attention, always bringing her into the conversation, always introducing her to new people, even if she forgot their names a moment after hearing them. And he was sort of ridiculous, in a refreshing way—one that reminded her not to take herself too seriously. And, also, in case she hadn't already mentioned—he was _incredibly_ _hot_. (In a quirky, shameless, _come to bed with me and I'll make you laugh_ sort of way, over which she most certainly had no qualms.) Not that she'd been planning to head down that direction, actually. She'd only just set out to find herself some attention, after all, and it was only the second or third week of school. She wasn't _actually_ considering anything more than just a general bit of fun and flirting, or maybe some making out, at most—sans the back porch swing, of course. Anything beyond that was off-limits. It wasn't what she was here for.

Right?

(She was having an awfully hard time remembering.

Especially when he smiled.)

“Hey,” he breathed close to her ear, and Korra's lungs did that thing again, where they stopped working almost entirely. “I have to go take care of something. Give me a sec, okay?”

A sting of disappointment struck through her—left alone, _yet_ _again_ —but she forced a curious smile to her face. And she _was_ intrigued, since he looked like he wasn't exactly looking forward to whatever it was that he was about to do. He actually looked genuinely annoyed to have to leave her side, which helped ease the sting a little **.**

“Another round of pong?” she joked, before he could sense her disappointmentment.  
  
His smile was an endearing mix of embarrassment and easy resignation, and again, Korra's intuition was struck with the feeling that he wasn't used to this kind of attention, to this kind of teasing. She wondered why.

“Not this time,” he answered easily. “I'm not actually allowed within a ten-foot radius of the pong table for the rest of the evening.”

Korra's mouth twitched. “Or what?” she asked, eyes slanting curiously.

“You know, they weren't quite clear on the matter. It sounded appropriately brutal, though.”

“Duly noted,” Korra quipped, feeling mischievous. “So if I should wish you to avoid you, that would be the perfect place to hide, then?”

She watched him bite down a smirk, and felt her insides squirm. “I'm afraid that's not the case,” he answered very solemnly, eyes glinting with equal mischief. “You see, under those circumstances, I would be quite willing to endure any unnamed consequences of venturing into the Forbidden Territory of Pong.”

Korra's heart skipped. “Circumstances?”

His smirk was light and playful, but his eyes were heavy with heat. “To find you, of course,” he answered teasingly, and then he smiled as he leaned forward, dangerously close, and said, “Although I can't imagine why you'd run in the first place.”

He was very, very close. “Good to know,” she whispered, feeling a little shell-shocked.

He strode away, leaving her amongst a small group of his friends, and she found herself thinking, _Neither can I._

* * *

This was stupid.

Ming was _useless_ , and Tahno's frustration must have been so palpable that it was sending out fucking signal alerts from all edges of the apartment because Shaozu was striding his way, looking far too happy for his own good. Tahno clutched his bottle of beer tightly in his hand, wishing again that it were a bottle of tequila, and tried not to smash it in anyone's face. Namely—

“So, how's it going?” Shaozu chirped, stepping into place.

Tahno scowled.

“That well, huh?”

“These girls won't fucking leave me alone,” he snapped, feeling ridiculous. (He didn't _do_ ridiculous. It made him angry.) “This shit doesn't count. I haven't even been able to get _close_ enough to this girl to try anything. Plus, now she's gone off somewhere with that asshole Wasp and, _by the way_ —who the fuck invited him?” Tahno demanded harshly. He turned to Ming and pointed accusingly with one of the fingers still trying to hold his bottle. “I want _answers_ —and let me tell you: the underclassmen are fucking _in_ for it on Monday.” He was going to run their asses into the ground. Tear them apart.

“Why did you even give them the time of night in the first place?” Shaozu asked, breaking apart his violent fantasies, and it was then that Tahno saw how his knuckles had gone white. He hissed a frustrated sigh. _One... Two... Three......._

“I thought you were sick of those girls?” Shaozu mused curiously, a little too loudly, and promptly earned himself a round of irritated glances from a gaggle of girls nearby. (This appeared to confuse Shaozu greatly, for how had _he,_ and not Tahno, had offended them?) _Serves him right_ , Tahno thought, waspishly.

“It's only recently that they started getting too comfortable,” Tahno dismissed offhandedly, flexing his fingers over the neck of the bottle. His eyes were already scoping the room for any other sign of the girl, or her worthless suitor. “They think they can cling and get away with it.”

“Yeah, because you _let_ them.”

Tahno's eyes slanted his way. _What the hell's gotten into him_?

“What's your point?” **  
**  
But he didn't answer. “So now what, master strategist?” Shaozu asked quickly, skipping over his question entirely. He seemed very pleased all of a sudden. Tahno didn't like it. “Any foolproof plans?”

 _Yeah, anything that doesn't include_ _you_ _._ “Find her,” Tahno snapped. “That's all I need to do.”

But that was easier said than done. Tahno was not about to start up some wild goose chase, but then again... the house wasn't _that_ big. (Where the _hell_ would they have gone?) He doubted she would have gone back to the back porch. Maybe the Wasp took her upstairs? His jaw clenched. It was as he was scanning the room, lost in thought, that he heard his two teammates behind him...

“I'm surprised you left,” he heard Ming whisper, and there was a question in his scolding tone that Tahno couldn't pick out.

“You texted me!” Shaozu hissed beneath his breath, obviously thinking that he was being sneaky. “You said that I 'should see Tahno'!”

“It was an _expression!_ ”

“I only left for like a minute!”

“ _Yeah_ , but at what cost?”

“You two have something to share?” Tahno snapped.

Shaozu and Ming snapped upright under his glare, looking appropriately guilty, but Tahno was too determined to actually care. He'd deal with them later.

“Don't bother me again unless you have something useful to say,” Tahno ordered, then stepped away, leaving them blinking up at him in surprise, and off he went, in search.

* * *

Korra was not unfamiliar with certain kinds of danger and— _most_ of the time—she liked to think she laughed in its face... but she was also the kind of girl who always poured her own drink, who walked with car keys clenched through her fingers like homemade brass knuckles, who punched first and asked questions later; _reckless_ , she would have admitted to being on any given day, but no one would have ever accused her of being _careless_.

Which was why she was staring very curiously down at the cup in her hand, and wondering _why_ , exactly, she had allowed herself to drink quite a bit more cheap vodka that she might have normally. She was no lightweight, given the burliness of her lifelong drinking buddies, but she was still a muscular machine packed into a relatively small frame. Perhaps she really should switch to water, she thought again. And soon.

The hour was growing late, but no one seemed to show any intention of leaving, and it was as Korra was pondering the potential ramifications of this that someone slipped into the space beside her. Korra smirked to herself, then turned slowly, thinking of the heat she'd felt before, and prepared to make an offer that couldn't be refuse—

Korra halted, eyes narrowing in disbelief.

“You again,” she accused.

* * *

Tahno smirked, feeling unexpectedly amused by her disappointment. “ _You_ again,” he echoed.

She looked oddly put out, like she'd been expecting someone else. _Too bad_ , Tahno thought deliciously. _I know exactly who you were waiting for._

“Starting to enjoy the party, I see,” he commented, nodding to her cup, which she tipped away from his questioning eyes.

“My roommate is over there,” the girl nodded sharply, indicating the room beyond the wall. Tahno glanced back, briefly, torn by a moment's indecision. (It _would_ be easier, he knew, to go after the roommate.

But then again... it wasn't ever really a choice.)

“I'm aware,” he replied vaguely, unmoving.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked pointedly, shifting back on the weight of her heels.

“It's possible,” Tahno replied, before he could come up with something a little smoother. _Shit_. Not exactly off to a solid start.

Her patience was already thin, apparently, and it wasn't more than a moment before she turned away, clearly dismissing him with a casual, “I doubt it.”

Too bad he wasn't the kind to be dismissed.

“You haven't heard what I offer,” he drawled.

Her face turned towards his, then, surprising him. _Well_. That was... a bit easier than he'd expected. She was considering him very carefully.

“Actually,” she said slowly, pursing her lips in thought. “I guess you coming over here was good for something, at least,” she commented idly, barely withholding a sigh. “Maybe there's something you could help me with, after all.”

 _Ah_. Tahno's heartbeat quickened in his chest. His mouth ran dry with anticipation. Unthinkingly, he shifted an inch closer.

“It's possible,” he repeated, though this time he let himself enjoy the silence that followed. _She's quick_ , he thought. (Not much of a challenge, after all, but for some reason he didn't really seem to—)

“Where's that teammate of yours?”

Tahno blinked, not understanding.

“You know?” she asked, peering at him with narrowed eyes. Her eyes glanced about the room behind his shoulder, and Tahno felt his eyes tighten with concentration. _Who—?_

“The one with the reddish-brownish hair?” she asked. It clicked.

His expression darkened.

“I don't know who you're talking about.”

(The girl stared at him; his stomach dropped. His throat felt thick, tight.) “Yes, you do,” she argued, eyes tightening suspiciously. “I just saw you talking to him a few minutes ago.”

“No, I wasn't,” he responded smoothly.

(He was not on his A-game today. The problem was, he wasn't even aware that he _had_ a B-game, and even worse—he was pretty sure that this little demonstration was far below even a B-game, at best.)

“Whatever,” she huffed. “I'm gonna find him anyway, with or without your help.”

“Waste of time,” Tahno remarked immediately, snidely, and buried down the stinging curl of guilt crawling through his gut. What Shaozu didn't know wouldn't hurt him. He wasn't around to hear this, and even then, maybe it'd have been for the better; it wasn't right for Shaozu to get his hopes over a girl that wasn't going to be available in the next couple of minutes, anyway. In fact, she didn't even know what she was talking about. She probably had mistaken him for somebody else, or something. ( _Shaozu?!_ )

 _And besides_ —Tahno had seen her first.

A single brow rose, high and sharp. “Says who?” she huffed.

“Trust me,” Tahno insisted, aiming for a much heavier dosage of flippant. He wasn't exactly living up to his reputation... Not that she'd know the difference. (Honestly, it was a matter of _principle_ ; Shaozu would understand.) “He's not your type.”

There was a pause. “Oh?” the girl breathed, mouth tight with annoyance. His gaze lingered on her mouth for a second too long. (He wanted it on _his_ mouth.) His brain grew heavy with clouds and _shit_ , she was speaking now.  
  
“And what would you know about my type?” she wanted to know.

 _Shit,_ he thought again, because that seemed to be the only useful thing his brain was capable of producing now. _Dammit_ , he thought, which wasn't much better. (He hadn't exactly thought all this through.)

“I'll take a guess,” he said, deciding that he'd make it up as he went. He'd always been a quick-thinker, and he notoriously good under pressure. _And she can't be that hard to figure out._

The girl hesitated. Then there was a single nod, and a gentle sweep of her palm through the air as she reached out and said, “Be my guest.”

“You want to be challenged,” he blurted. It'd come out of nowhere, and yet, Tahno knew as soon as he'd said it that it was true; never had Tahno been more sure in his life about a woman's needs—and, given his track record, he considered himself something of an expert.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Challenged _how_?” she asked.

 _That_ _is_ _the question_ , Tahno thought. He took a step forward. “You tell me,” he volleyed.

“I thought you were going to guess.”

He shrugged. “I could. But I'm not sure even you know.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “Quite the charmer, aren't you,” she muttered.

 _Is that your type?_ he almost asked, then—in a rare stroke of wisdom—decided against. “You're quite the antagonist,” he remarked, which she seemed to find really amusing.

“I think you have our roles reversed,” she scoffed a laugh, then took a disdainful sip from her cup. It was then that he noticed the tell-tale flush of her cheeks; she'd been drinking, obviously, but he wondered how much. Automatically, as if it were a natural reaction, Tahno took a sip from his drink as well, watching her.

“What makes you think I'm not the hero?” he asked, smirking in spite of himself, because truly, the idea was laughable.  
  
(But really. He also wanted to _know_.)

“I doubt heroes in this day and age are surrounded by harems as large as yours,” she said, slyly glancing toward the back corner, where he'd been standing not long before, crowded by a horde of so-called fans. Tahno watched the lines of her face shift into something cold and careful when she straightened and said, “All right. My turn to guess. You're some hot-shot upperclassman whose type is whatever fresh meat just happens to be at the latest party.” Her blue eyes were very, very cold. It didn't seem to fit.

“Am I right?” she asked, coolly, when he didn't respond.

Tahno's mouth opened, but the intensity of the question— _interrogation_ —caught him off-guard. He recovered quickly—though perhaps not _well_.

“Meat,” he replied slowly, testing the word on his tongue, then bit his cheek in consideration. “Are you calling me a butcher?” he asked, making light of her jab.  
  
But she wasn't biting. The girl peered up at him—with disgust, sure, but maybe with a bit of pity, too.  
  
(Tahno didn't _do_ pity.

And certainly not now, of all times.)

“I'd call you a womanizer,” she said thoughtfully, quietly, a chill in the muggy September air. “But to be honest, I'm not really sure I'd like to call you anything.”

Tahno frowned.

“You seem awfully sure of yourself for someone who's done little more than people-watching the whole evening,” he said, and instead of teasingly sarcastic, it'd come out as more scathingly sharp than he'd intended, and yeaaaah, okay, maybe that wasn't the best way to win a girl over. He was losing it.

( _Shit_. He was _really_ losing it.)

“Wait,” he called, then reached for her arm, just as she was almost beyond his reach. He felt the skin and bone and muscles tense between his fingers, sparking beneath his touch, and he vaguely wondered why he hadn't yet gotten punched. (In a rare mark of decency, he privately acknowledged that he wasn't sure he should pity her for ending up the center of his attention—his _intentions,_ more specifically _—_ or consider her his best mistake all night.) Unfortunately, all this extra thinking meant that he spent an awful lot of time with her arm in his grasp, and him doing a whole hell of a lot of nothing about it.

The girl wrenched her arm away with a scoff. She barely looked his way as she strode forward, tossing over her shoulder a disdainful, disappointed, sarcastically cruel, “See you around, pretty boy.”

* * *

This party had gone from bad to _worse,_ over and over, from the moment she first stepped in through the door. (Where was _Asami?_ ) Between the frustrations from her less-than-stellar human interactions and the terrible cure-all vodka that kept making its way into her cup, Korra was ready to declare hermitry and head for the mountains. They were sure to be a hell of a lot better than the swamps, which apparently were crawling with all sorts of nasty stuff. The very air felt heavier here. (She was short of breath no matter where she went, no matter who she was talking to.

No matter _who_ she was talking to.)

 _This is ridiculous. I don't have a type_. Korra stormed down the stairs into the basement, clutching onto the railing mid-way to glance over the crowd, searching for a familiar head of big, beautiful hair. It was too dark to see clearly, but _maybe_ if she could pick out her voice... She didn't like the idea that she had a _type_. Types were boring. _She_ wasn't boring.

(Was she?

What _was_ her type, anyway?)

 _Whatever_. It didn't matter. _He_ didn't matter. He didn't know her. (What did _he_ know?) With his big, stupid hair and his tall, stupid frame, and his gross attitude and beautiful, arrogant face and _shit_ , this was getting complicated.

She wanted to do everything at once. She wanted to dance. She wanted to _fight_. She wanted to find that brown-haired teammate and dance with him. Preferably in front of that Railing Guy's face. _Railing Guy_. Not Pretty Boy. _Ugh, I can't believe I said that out loud_. She wanted to forget that ever happened.  
  
She wanted to leave.

“Hey,” came Asami's voice from behind, a little breathlessly, startling Korra into nearly spilling her drink over the side of the stairway railing. Korra turned around and caught sight of her on the step above hers, and allowed herself a tentative sigh of relief. Asami smelled sweet and a little sugary, tangy with citrus, and Korra knew that her roommate had no doubt gotten acquainted with the jungle juice. She didn't even know where she'd _been_ for the last hour and a half and, belatedly, Korra wondered if she should be concerned _._ “ _Isn't this so fun!_ ” she breathed, grasping Korra's elbow gently—whether to share in her joy more closely, or to steady herself, she wasn't sure—and Korra's stomach clenched with jealousy at the honest enjoyment in her words.

“Yeah,” Korra nodded, and hoped her smile appeared somewhat genuine. Or at least, not like a grimace. She'd take anything at this point. “Loads.”

Asami looked at her. _Shit_ , Korra thought. Perhaps she hadn't acted as well as she'd thought.

“You okay?” Asami asked, with real concern; it was hard for Korra to hear.

“Fine,” she assured her brightly, firmly, then forced her shoulders to relax, and her grin to grow. The last thing she wanted was Asami, of all people, pitying her. “Just, you know—taking a bit of a breather,” she chuckled, a bit awkwardly. Asami didn't look convinced. For all the jungle juice Korra could smell on her, she looked like she was functioning fairly well... and for all of her roommate's self-absorption, she was turning out to be surprisingly perceptive. _Unfortunately._

“Have you met anybody new?” Asami asked curiously, and Korra _tried_ her hardest, but couldn't help but feel a bit defensive.

“Oh, you know—one or two guys who weren't total bros,” she answered, which was true. “It's mostly creepers, though.”

 _And one who never came back_ , Korra thought, bitter with disappointment.

Asami laughed, which surprised Korra. She wasn't sure why that was so funny. She hadn't meant it to be. “Oh my god, I _know_ ,” Asami agreed, and Korra couldn't help it, the spark of surprise that flitted through her brain— _you do?_ “Some of these guys have turned out to be real jerks.”

 _Oh, thank god_ , Korra thought. Asami might actually be human, after all. Slowly, she began to feel a budding sense of appreciation that she had rarely felt towards her roommate before. “Yeah?” Korra asked, just as curiously. She wondered if they'd inadvertently ended up talking to any of the same guys. Maybe there was something that they had in common, after all? She knew of at least one asshole, in particular, with whom they'd shared the unfortunate pleasure of speaking. ( _“You like to be challenged.”_ )

 _Ugh_.

“Oh, yeah. The swamp guys are so much different than the city boys, and not necessarily in ways that are any better. The city boys are so much shyer, I'd say,” Asami diagnosed, surprisingly articulate for someone who was, quite obviously, _drunk_. “I feel like they are so hesitant to do _anything_. The swamp boys, though—they're so much more assertive. Aggressive, even.”

 _Yes!_ Korra thought, with feeling. (And finally, something that connected them! Not exactly the _strongest_ connection, by any means, or even the healthiest, but—) “ _Yes!_ ” Korra voiced aloud. “Oh my god, _tell_ me about it,” she enthused. “Especially that really tall one, with all the heavy eyeliner... He's a real piece of work,” Korra scoffed, prepared to plunge into an in-depth analysis of why he was the scum of the swamps.

“Oh, god,” Asami gasped, and a disconcerting gleam passed over her eyes. “So you saw him, too,” she placed a hand on Korra's forearm, her skin soft and warm.

“Uh,” Korra hesitated, feeling awkward with Asami standing so close to her; there was something about her tone that was off. (Also, did she really have to bring her face right up towards hers? She knew the party was loud, but it seemed a little much. A little personal.) “Yeah,” Korra answered, uncertain.

“I'm not surprised,” Asami admitted, soft eyeshadow sparking in the light. “He's kind of hard to miss. I feel like like I've been fighting tooth and nail for his attention all night.”

“Um,” said Korra, as her mouth went startlingly dry. “Beg pardon?”

“Well, you've seen the way the girls flock to him, haven't you?And you can tell that it's not _all_ appreciated—he obviously favors some over the others—but he's obviously the cream of the crop around here.”

“Sorry—the what of the _what_?”

“Have you talked to him?” Asami asked curiously, eyes so much sharper now than they were a minute ago. “He was chatting me up at the beginning of the party, but he's been so elusive since. I refuse to cling onto him the way some of the other girls, but seriously—it is _so_ tempting. I've been meeting a bunch of new people, but I've been trying to catch his eye again for like, two hours.”

Korra's mouth opened, but her tongue felt thick and swollen. _Speechless_ —that's what she was. Speechless.

“Well?” Asami persisted, stepping impossibly closer. Her voice was low and her breath was warm and sweet, the sticky scent of alcohol fluttering under Korra's nose, and it was distracting. “Any luck?”

“Luck?” Korra echoed brainlessly, finding it hard to swallow.

“Yeah, you know—has anybody shown any interest?” Asami went on. Her eyes looked a little glazed, and her cheeks were flushed. “I mean, I doubt _he'd_ go after a couple of freshmen girls like us, what with so many upperclassmen ladies hovering around him, but who knows? Maybe we've got a shot,” Asami winked, then pointedly eyed the length of Korra, up and down. Absurdly, Korra felt herself begin to blush.

“I don't—uh. He's not really—I mean. He's not really my type,” Korra managed, feeling undeniably awkward. (“ _I'm not even sure you know._ ”) And befuddled. Definitely befuddled. She tried to ignore the fresh memory of her recent conversation with the creeper in question, which was something she was still trying to erase from her mind altogether. (Just when she'd thought she'd begun to understand her roommate. Just when she thought she'd begun to understand _society_. They all went and proved to her that they had terrible, _terrible_ taste. Awful. _Insane._ )

Asami looked at her then, and her eyes did the thing that they normally did when she was trying to understand something, in which her head tilted to the side and her eyes narrowed in question—not necessarily in accusation, by any means, just surprise—and Korra had more than a difficult time trying not to take it personally. _He's a fucking sleaze-bag!_ Korra wanted to proclaim, to shake some sense into her, but Korra had a feeling that was one point on which she and her roommate would never agree. Korra felt strangely disappointed all of a sudden.

“Oh,” Asami said softly, looking very carefully at Korra's face, like she was trying to make sense of _her_. It was a disconcerting feeling, and not for the first time, Korra had the uncomfortable notion that perhaps _she_ was the one doing something wrong, who wasn't quite right in the head. But the awkwardness passed quickly, at least for Asami, because her roommate smiled brightly, soft and sweet and mischievous, and said, “All right, then. We'll find someone else more suited to your tastes, whatever those might be.” She meant to look reassuring, Korra could tell, but it didn't quite work; Korra didn't know where to start, or how to explain the conflict within her—she didn't _need_ to find anybody, because she was perfectly fine being on her own, but okay, _yeah_ , she sort of _did_ want to find somebody, after all, so sue her.

“Um,” Korra bit her lip. “Thanks?”

“Of course,” Asami smiled, giving her arm a gentle squeeze. “We're roommates.”

Korra didn't really know what that had to do with anything, or why living together was supposed to make them feel any closer beyond the scope of sharing each other's living quarters. But it was a nice gesture, all the same.

“Sure,” she replied, awkwardly.

“And anyway, if you happen to see Tall, Pale, and Handsome again—let me know,” Asami requested with another wink. “I'm gonna get my hands on him, one way or another, and I'm willing to wait for my opportunity. We've got all night.”

 

_.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
._

 

And as Asami flitted away, Korra realized that

that was exactly what she was afraid of.

 

_.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
_

“ _Fuck,”_ Shaozu hissed, and then completely missed the irritated glare he received from the girl he'd bumped into without realizing; Ming tilted his head meaningfully in her direction, but that wasn't noticed either. “I can't fucking find either of them anywhere.”

Ming resisted the urge to sigh. “I told you not to let her out of your sight,” he reminded him. His voice was calm, but this only seemed to rile Shaozu further.

“You _said_ that I—” He cut himself off, emitting a loud scoff from deep in his throat, and by this time the girl's glare was positively murderous. (Ming decided it was probably best not to tell him, at this point; Shaozu was already fired up enough as it was, and she was already moving toward the next room. _Oh, well_.) “Never mind! Just—fucking help me find them— _please._ ”

A slow, curious brow rose high. “What makes you think they're together?”

Shaozu glared.

“For real?” he scoffed. “Come _on_ , Ming,” Shaozu snapped, as his brows knitted together and his frown tightened. “What do you want to bet he swooped in the first second he saw her alone and swept her away, just like he usually does?”

Ming didn't disagree, but he still asked, “I thought you said she was too smart to fall for his tricks.”

“ _Dude_ —I don't know how he fucking works!” Shaozu spat. _“Obviously._ He could have any number of tricks reserved for this very situation!” He was already out of breath, though whether that was from all his running around or a testament to the severity of his discontent, Ming couldn't be sure. _Probably a combination of both_ , he reasoned. Shaozu's voice was full of angry defeat when he muttered, “Maybe even _we_ don't know what he's fully capable of.”

“He's fickle,” Ming remarked, taking a lazy sip of his beer. “Not psychopathic.”

Shaozu's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. _Damn_ , Ming frowned; Shaozu was taking this a lot harder than he'd thought.

“You should have known better than to issue that challenge,” he said. “You saw how off Tahno was when he got here—he was already out of the game before he even arrived.”

“Yeah,” Shaozu muttered. “So?”

“So I'd expected him to stay maybe a half-hour, tops,” Ming clarified. “All he needed tonight was a night to himself, to think—as _loathe_ as he is to endure it. And the thing was, I think he'd actually started to realize that himself. He was ready to call it a night... until you gave him a reason to stay. And even worse—you gave him a _challenge_ ,” he frowned. “If you'd kept your mouth shut, he'd have gone home, drank himself a helpful helping of tequila, gone to bed, and you'd have had a higher chance of scoring. It's basic strategy.”

 _And basic friendship_ , but Ming wasn't really the kind to say those sorts of things out loud.

“Yeah, well,” Shaozu muttered darkly, without really looking at him. Ming frowned. “Strategy was always Tahno's deal, anyway.”

Ming turned to face Shaozu more fully. _This is new_ , he thought, and started to feel the tiniest trace of growing concern. “What is it that's bothering you about this so much?” he asked, with real, genuine curiosity. “You're not going to be living in his shadow forever.”

“It's not that,” Shaozu said quickly, then bit his lip. His eyes jumped about the room, still scanning the crowd, though his mind seemed a thousand miles away. “I mean, it _is_. But. It's more than that. I'm not gonna lose to _him_.”

Ming frowned. _Same old story, after all._

He barely withheld a sigh when he took another sip and asked, “Not this time?”

But Shaozu's answer surprised him.

 

 

_.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
._

He looked Ming right in the eye and said,

“Not this girl.”

_.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _11/5/14_. WELL, IT ONLY TOOK A YEAR. This isn't exactly what I was originally aiming for, and I'm not 100% pleased with it, but I'm so ready for it to be finished and I was happy enough with what I had that I decided to just go for it. I just hope that it's not too anticlimactic or anything, especially after almost a whole year of waiting. :P Womp.
> 
> Also: Heather, lady, I'm sorry that this did not _directly_ end up meeting the exact requirements of your prompt (at least not that you can SEE), but I hope you'll still forgive me. ;)
> 
> Beta'd by **ebonyquill** and strongly cheered on by **socksssss**. Thank you so much, ladies! I know it's been a while. :P
> 
> Thanks for your patience, everyone! It's been a while since I've been bit by the Tahnorra bug, and it's good to be back. :) If you're into my _break the ice_ series on FFNET, you should know that there will be an update for that story within the next few days!

 

 

* * *

  _You are a glass half empty_  
 _Sipping my ocean dry_  
 _Emotionally spent me_  
 _'Til none of our planets could align_

_But I could stand you one more night_

_I like us better when we're wasted_   
_It makes it easier to say it_   
_Lay all your laundry on the bed_   
_And then I'll lay in it instead_   
_I like us better when we're wasted_

\- “ **Wasted** ” by Tiesto

* * *

“ _Asami_ ,” Korra hissed.

It was no use.

She knew even before the word had left her mouth that the blaring music had drowned it out.

“ _Asami_!” she tried again. It was rather difficult, however, to shout across a room and still try to imply a sense of privacy. Especially when surrounded by a sea of people on a raging dance floor.

“Korra!” her roommate cried, finally having spotted her. Asami's arm snaked out, and before Korra could even begin to protest, she was being dragged into Asami's inner-circle of dancing friends, pulled nearly flush against her side. The other girls waved and cheered when they saw that another body had joined their party, but otherwise paid her no mind; Korra watched in morbid fascination as they moved and swayed—sometimes to the beat, sometimes not. She felt very dizzy just watching them. “You're here!” Asami cried, snapping Korra's attention back to the cause of this whole mess—her roommate. Korra resisted the urge to say something snarky.

“I think we should go!” Korra tried to shout over the music, and then—feeling awkward about being the only still body in a loud, dark room filled with swaying ones—began to sway along with the crowd, just slightly. It felt weird, doing this. She normally loved to dance.

She was good at it, too.

But Asami's face contorted with concentration. She hadn't heard her. “ _What?_ ” her roommate tried.

“I _said—_ I think we should go!”

Korra couldn't really explain why she wanted to leave all of a sudden; the urge had hit her a few times over the course of the evening, but now it was unbearably painful. Auburn Hair had upped and left, apparently, and like hell if Korra was going to waste any more of her time by pathetically looking for him.

Abandoned by at least two guys in the same night. Great—a new record.

( _And, for just a moment, she thought_  
 _she might’ve_  
 _actually—_ )

“Sorry—I can't hear you!” Asami mouthed, then stepped closer, slamming Korra's brain on pause. Her arm was tingling where Asami held tight, and she stiffened when Asami leaned close and repeated, past the blaring music, directly into her ear, “Sorry—I couldn't hear! What did you say?”

Asami pulled back, presumably so that Korra could do the same, but she found herself shock-still with surprise.

This was what Korra saw:

A dark room, flashing intermittently with lights, filled with people. Smiling faces. Dark eyes and open mouths. Laughing grins and bright eyes and fearlessness. They were having fun, Korra realized. They were all dancing, and enjoying themselves, and living their lives, and having _fun_.

Korra turned to Asami, the words at the tip of her tongue— _I think we should go home—_ but then she caught sight of Asami's face, flushed and bright and happy. (In a bizarre twist of memory, Korra recalled how, sometimes, over the last few weeks she had caught herself staring at how symmetrical Asami's features were—the line of her nose, the shape of her lips. The color. She'd thought that girls like that only existed in textbooks. And magazines. So far, she hadn't really appreciated being proven wrong; Korra was pretty confident, but when presented with _perfection_ , things tended to take on a totally different perspective.) Yet here Asami was, looking perfectly disheveled, and happy. Her hair had fallen out of its clip. Her gloss had run dry. Sweat was beginning to gather at her temples, and her smile was bright and genuine—she was _genuinely_ happy to see her, Korra realized—and her eyes were watching her with growing concern, and _aw, fuck it._

With a heavy sigh, Korra's jealousy gave way, and in its stead wormed a warm ball of resignation and _well, I guess one more hour wouldn't hurt._

“Never mind!” Korra gritted out, and accidentally pressed her lips into Asami's hair, just as she felt someone's elbow accidentally bump into her shoulder. _Ugh_. It was only inevitable. “Have fun,” she encouraged, already readying herself for a step back toward the kitchen when Asami's hand on her arm tightened.

“Wait—you can't leave yet!” Asami cried, loudly enough for Korra to hear over the music—and for her troupe of girls to hear, too. Exclamations bombarded her on all sides. “Dance with us first!” they cried. “At least one!”

Well.

Korra didn't really want to.

Except she _sort_ of, kind of, wanted to.

* * *

So she did.

* * *

“Guys— _no_ —I can't—I'm not kidding, I have to— _guys!_ ”

Tahno scoffed and took another swig from his beer, watching from afar. Some of his teammates were dragging Shaozu away into the kitchen for an inevitable round of body shots and, for some inexplicable reason, he looked less than ecstatic to go.

Honestly. There were girls offering to lick lime juice off of his neck, for chrissake, and there he was, struggling to get away. Whatever _._ He should probably go help him, because Tahno actually happened to be a (mostly) decent friend. (And, as it just so happened, _he_ enjoyed body shots.)

Fuck it. He could have anyone he wanted. (Anyone.) And as long as Shaozu didn't get anyone, then who the fuck cared whether Tahno took one home or not. He did whatever the fuck he wanted. This was his year. He was going to enjoy it the way he wanted to— _challenge be damned._

Starting with a bottle of quality tequila, and some salt.

So it was as he was making his way over to rescue Shaozu from what was sure to be an incredibly great time when someone reached out, grabbed hold of his arm, and yanked him into an empty, darkened hallway. He did _not_ trip over himself on the way.

He did not.

Cotton-mouthed and chest gone tight— _and, it took him a moment, to realize how—this feeling—wasn't just shortness of breath, was actually because someone's forearm was pressing hard into his sternum_ —and all Tahno managed was a raspy, exasperated—

“ _Fuck is your prob—?_ ”

—oh.

Back Porch girl was back.

* * *

  _This_ , Korra thought, _was a stupid idea._

But it was too late to back down now.

* * *

She looked ready to fucking kill him.

Also.

(—and, he wasn't feeling _one-hundred percent certain_ on this, but—)

That thing digging into his lower back?? Definitely felt like a door knob.

A fucking door knob.

_And—_

— _she was tearing into him about something??_

“—think you're nothing but an egotistical, sleazy jerk who thinks he can walk all over people,” the girl accused, in a quiet hiss, just _this_ side of thoughtless violence. Her eyes were burning, but her voice was level—cool and disdainful and a little fucking unsettling, thank you very much, and again, why was he against a fucking door knob?

Um.

“You're probably used to getting whatever the hell you want, and I'm sure there are a hundred billion reasons why,” she gritted, eyes narrowing. Her arm was digging deeper into his chest, messing with his air supply, and _this_ —this was—

“ _The fu—?_ ”

The hard ridge of her forearm settled deep at the base of his throat, pinning him back against the door, cutting off his words. It wasn't so much the pressure that made it hard to breathe as much as it was the way she'd pressed herself between his legs.

“I don't particularly care about any of them,” she told him severely, almost _quiet_ in her ferocity, gaze flashing. Tahno vaguely remembered his hands—and the bottle of something or other hanging loosely in one of them. Hell if he knew what the other one was doing. Wait. _There it was_ —against the door, behind him.

Fuck.

Her eyes darted up, then back down—at _his_ chest and _her_ arm and—Tahno didn't dare make any sudden movements. She was stupidly close. And slightly terrifying.

In the psychotic, sorta hot, _I'm gonna kick your ass_ kind of way.

Sorta hot.

Not really.

Because her arm was still slamming his collarbone to the door and for some stupid reason Tahno had not yet found the will to move—to break free from this tiny force of nature, this fucking riled-up creature who practically had to stand on her _toes_ to glare up into his face. This gorgeous wall of mass and muscle who was still staring at him like she hated him.

Okay.

So.

Actually hot?

“Also, your hair is stupid.”

In a slow crawl of awareness, Tahno realized that his mouth was open, gaping slightly, and through it, he took a long, deep breath. All he tasted was alcohol.

His left eyebrow may or may not have been twitching.

“Is that right?” he said slowly, condescendingly, because that seemed like the wisest thing to say—it seemed like something _he_ would say, and maybe— _if he backed away slowly—_ she wouldn't fucking notice him. Maybe he could slip away, out through the side door into the little alley, and regain control of himself. This night. Maybe she'd forget that this conversation ever happened.

 _You always find the craziest shit_ , snarled a voice in the back of his head, one that sounded suspiciously, venomously sober. _Can't you just pick an easy one for once?_

But he did. He _had_. Repeatedly.

 _And that's the problem_ , argued another voice, and before Tahno knew it—he was frowning.

( _Isn't it?_ )

“I don't know what my roommate sees in you,” she whispered thoughtfully, and looked him very clearly in the eye.

Well.

Fuck _this_.

“Phenomenal,” he drawled low, thick and snarled with simmering, indignant, belated rage. “Is she as personable as you are?” he mocked cruelly. “Because I've decided I could really use a little more fucking psycho-batshit personality in my boring lif—”

She kissed him.

Her fist was clenched into the collar of his shirt— _she'll stretch it_ —the bony ridge of her arm hard across his clavicle, and her lips were warm and firm and sweet and sticky with vodka, and just as his lips were about to start pressing back—as soon as he remembered who he _was_ —

She pulled away.

He tried to breathe—couldn't _,_ at first—briefly wondered if what she'd actually done was punch the air from his lungs—but then oxygen came in a hurtling rush, and then he was breathing _too_ deeply, inhaling with reckless abandon, and the heavy, sticky air around them made him dizzy. His vision swam, and his head tilted with sensation, and he was suddenly very grateful that he was pushed against a wall. A door knob. (He wasn't thinking straight.) He wasn't thinking straight.

 _Her_ breath was short—coming in quick, shallow succession, rising and falling with the flush along her chest. She peered up at him with curious, narrowed eyes. Or, at least, from what he could see behind the sparks.

Her hand was still fisted in his shirt.

“Yeah,” she rasped shakily, heaving another breath as she looked him over. She swallowed, and her chin gave one tiny, sharp shake. “I don't know."

Tahno stared down at her, and as his focus gradually began to clear, his lip curled slowly in open confusion.

He apparently wasn't hearing straight either.

(And in the back of his mind, a tiny voice—anticipation and acceptance, curiosity and intrigue, indignation, and desire—

— _the fuck did you just do?_ )

He looked down at her, astounded and aroused and alert and then her shoulders settled back, and something passed over her face, like. Like—

Resignation?

“Ah,” she said, with a strange sort of finality, once the gears in Tahno's brain began whirring once more. One moment there was her arm, and the next, he felt the warm flat of her palm give a gentle _pat-pat_ over his chest, right over the obvious battering of his heart stuttering stupidly in its cage. Her hand dropped away altogether and she said, “Well... it was worth a shot, I guess.”

Worth.

Worth a shot.

What.

“Worth a—?” he managed, then stumbled as she stepped away, despite having a fucking _door_ to lean against. (Dignity = g o n e.) The nightmare never ended. “ _Worth_ a— _?”_ he sputtered, because _no_.

And Back Porch girl was staring up at him, blinking. Like _he_ was the crazy one.

Confusion.

Slight hysteria.  
  
“What the _fuck_ was that?”

“What?” she asked simply, unfazed. No. _More like_ —more like, _unaware._ Like she had no idea why he might— _why he might_ —have a fucking problem with with just happened. (Or, at least—she was really fucking good at pretending she didn't.) She was back in her own space again, but Tahno could still feel her all over him—on his skin, in his chest, in his fucking lungs. The tiniest lift of her shoulders, like a shrug. And then, fucking cool as a cucumber, “You can't tell me you weren't the least bit curious.”

(Actually, he'd been _very_ curious.  
That was the whole problem.)

But anger was a lot easier to admit to than defeat, so, “You're fucking nuts,” was what he said, instead.

Back Porch Girl stared at him, dull eyes full of disappointment, and then he was blocking her path with his outstretched arm, the one that he didn't even remember commanding to move in the first place. The knobby ridges of his knuckles connected with the flat of the wall in the midst of building his barricade, and he spilled some of his stupid beer, some of which slipped onto her bare shoulder, and when her eyes dragged back up to his, they were full of fire.

Shit. He was gonna die, probably. At the hands of a tiny nut-creature, no fucking less.

But there were more important things.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he demanded, words tumbling out too quickly—feeling dangerously close to shrill. “The _hell_ was that—some sort of fucked-up sneak attack? You fucking plan that?”

Indignant confusion. “I didn't _attack_ you.”

Anger. Memory. _Arousal._ Tahno gritted his teeth and spat, “ _Wanna bet?_ ”

Her scowl was fierce, but that was okay—Tahno had _years_ of practice. Her scowl had nothing on his.

Stupid, tiny freshman.

Stupid, tiny, probably-just-turned-eighteen, probably has never been to a party before, fucking beautiful, fucking freshman.

“Look,” she said sharply, glaring up from under her fucking eyelashes, and Tahno absurdly recalled that he could still taste her—resisted the urge to lick the traces from his lips. “It was a stupid idea. It ended up being a mistake, anyway, because that kiss was shit.”

Oh.

_Oh—_

Oh, _fuck_ no.

“Fucking _what_?”

“You heard me,” she insisted, crossing her arms. God, she was so short. Did she think she actually looked intimidating like that, with her feet stanced wide and her chin pointed up, like she knew what the fuck she was talking about.

Like she was the one in control here.

A moment of clarity assaulted him, like a slow-rolling wave crashing onto the shore. This girl _didn't_ know what she was talking about. She didn't know this place, or who the hell he was—probably didn't even know who _she_ was—but the point was that _Tahno_ knew who he was, and where they were, and what usually happened next.

Time to pull his shit together.

A beat passed, slow and controlled, and then Tahno managed to collect something of his former self.

“Listen,” he said, soft and short. It was meant to come out the way most of his words usually did: smooth, with just a touch of snide condescension, but his patience was as frayed as his beer was sloshed, and Tahno couldn't be faulted for snapping. “I have _had_ my fair share of shit kisses. A _recent_ few come to mind, but that's neither here nor there. Believe me,” he promised, in his usual manner of unpleasant promises. “If that were one of them—I woulda let you know.” She made a face, so he leaned _his_ closer. “And—I'll level with you here,” he offered magnanimously. “That was not a kiss.”

“Yeah. That's what I said.”

He scowled.

“No,” he insisted, eyes narrowing. “It's not.”

Hell if he was gonna repeat what she _did_ say, though; he refused. And Tahno refused to consider the implications of that refusal. (That, maybe, her words had struck a nerve that had to do with more than just pride.)

Why was she just fucking standing there?

She was staring at him, and it was only just occurring to him now that he was staring back, and that the forearm of his beer-hand had glued itself to the wall near her head and, just beneath it, just before him— _such a familiar stance, like muscle memory_ —there she stood, arms crossed and eyes calculating. He glared down, but it still felt like a leer. (Was it possible, he wondered, for him _not_ to lace suggestiveness into his movements? Just for once?

Probably not.)

She shifted to the left, just slightly, and— _almost as if to prove him right_ —his own body tilted in tandem, mirroring hers.

Shit.

“Look,” she sighed, gruff and ragged, and now she just sounded exhausted. “I'm... sorry, okay? It was a stupid impulse, and... Honestly, I shouldn't have even come over here,” she huffed, rubbing the heel of her hand over an eyebrow and whoah, wait, _no_ , this game was not over, she wasn't allowed to give up.

Not yet.

“Sorry for messing with your night, man. It's not, like... I don't know. It's not my business. I'm leaving, anyway. You just—keep on doing whatever it was that you were doing.” She was leaving? Without even looking at him? “Thanks, anyway, pretty boy,” she shrugged, and _hell_ no.

“ _Pretty Boy?”_ Tahno scowled out, lips peeled back. When she tried to move—under the space of his arm, then between him and the wall—he shifted closer to the ugly wallpaper, effectively blocking her path once again. “Where the hell are you _going?”_

“ _What_?” she demanded, and he didn't even understand the brand of anger and frustration on her face, it was so foreign, irrationally intriguing, and _fuck_ , Tahno, you have had too many drinks. “I said I was sorry!” _._

“That's not the _point_. You can't just—just _leave_ , after pulling something like that.”

Slowly, her eyes narrowed. Her head tilted to the side thoughtfully, and—more than a little irritated, and Tahno felt the earth sway, ever-so-slightly. And then he realized that red flags were suddenly flying high, and signals were blaring in the back of his head, and that look on her face was a clear sign of _danger,_ fuck, and it was just as she whispered, low and strained—

“Says who?”

Tahno's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. Realization struck him hard.

“ _Jesus_ —I didn't fucking mean it like _that_!” Tahno snarled, disgusted by the very suggestion. “ _Fuck._ I'm not a fucking—jesus. I'm just saying you—you can't _just_ — _catch—_ somebody off-guard like that and expect the fucking earth to move—and then walk away when it doesn't.”

She blinked at him like _he_ was the crazy one, and _shit_ —

He was the crazy one.

But then her stance relaxed, and her features slid into something mischievous. Challenging.

“Says who?” she repeated, shifting toward him slightly, and wait, what, what was happening? What? Where was the air? Why the fuck wasn't it in his lungs?

“Says everyone. Says the universe, I don’t fucking know.”

“Your hair gnomes tell you that?"  
  
Tahno scowled. Distinctly unimpressed, he drolled, “Anyone ever tell you that you’re rude as hell?”  
  
Her grimace told him someone probably had. (Not like he was any better, and he half-expected her to say so, but—)

“I should punch you,” she said slowly, sounding awed. Tahno resisted the urge to jerk back, but he couldn't be faulted for tensing up bit.

“Don't,” he muttered.

“I don't think I'm going to,” she mused, like she was really actually considering it, and surprised by it.

“Oh. Great. That's a comfort.”

“Is it?” she sounded curious. “You must not care a whole lot about your survival.”

He struggled not to be offended. “You’re still talkin’ a lot of shit for somebody who's in the middle of an apology.”

“I'm not apologizing.”

“I'll say.”

“I lied. I actually think I want to hit you, after all.”

 _I actually almost want you to_ —wait, _no_ , not the right response, nope. Keep your mouth _shut_ , keep your—

“Actually,” she announced suddenly, eyes widening ever-so-slightly with alarm. “I think... I actually might want to kiss you again.” She blinked, and he blinked, equally confused. A beat passed, and she amended, “Which is probably a terrible idea.”

His voice was dry like sandpaper—kind of like how this whole evening was turning out to be. He considered taking a bracing sip of his beer, then realized that most of it had spilled onto the rug. Figured.

“Well,” he muttered, dismally. Where the fuck was Ming? As soon as this shitshow was over, he was getting the fuck out of here. At last, he took a sip of his beer—lukewarm and stale—and withheld his grimace, barely. “Kind of difficult to turn down an offer like that,” he scoffed.

Her eyes shined with a glare. “It wasn't an offer,” she argued immediately.

 _The fuck?_ “It definitely wasn't a good one.”

She frowned at him, but he was determined not to care. (He _didn't_ care. He was on his way out.) “I think it was the start of a deal proposal,” she corrected, rather businesslike, which was weird because, like, wasn't that her roommate's thing? Whatever. He didn't give a shit.  
  
Wait.  
  
Deal?

(Aw, _fuck_ no, not again—)

“You _think_ it was?” he echoed mindlessly, ignoring the uncomfortable ridge that shuddered along the back of his throat.

“You know, the more you open that mouth, the less I want to put _my_ mouth on it.”

( _Who said it has to be my_ mouth _your mouth has to be on?_ ) Yeah, still somehow wise enough not to that say aloud. Which meant that he was not nearly drunk enough. Or too drunk. Just right?

He was fucking Goldilocks.

“It's your call,” he said suddenly, then regretted it immediately. (When, in the history of the world, did he _ever_ allow anything— _anything_ —to be someone else's call?) And if there was anyone on the planet whose judgment he was certain he'd never trust, it was probably this chick's, that was for damn sure, and— _great_ , now she was staring at him again.

(He had a feeling that she knew it—that she realized the uniqueness of the situation.  
  
Of her unprecedented position.)

(You are _Tahno_ , a voice whispered, useless.)

 “I have a proposition,” she declared anew, evenly, with a level firmness that wasn't there before.

But still, Tahno couldn't resist. “If it's anything like the last one, I can't say I'll—”

“It's the only one I'll make, so take it or leave it,” and Tahno shut up. She inched forward, just a step, and there he was again, not quite up against the wall, but close.

Very close.

“Listening,” he offered, quietly, though he couldn't remember forming the word in his brain.

And when she stepped forward again, into what meager space between them still remained, untouching, Tahno felt a rush of wooziness claim his head, his pulse spike with anticipation. Blood and heat rushed downward and he decided that they were _not,_ actually, close enough.

She lifted her face. She could have made any number of offers then, and he probably wouldn't have been able to refuse any of them, but he still wasn't quite expecting it, the level of concentration needed, when she moved her lips and said, “I'm in a hurry to get home. Show me what you can do in ten minutes, and I'll let you know whether or not you're actually as good as everyone thinks you are.”

Tahno paused. Ten fucking minutes?

He was insulted.

And yet, undoubtedly—he was intrigued. Though still a little confused. (He refused to acknowledge the uneasiness settling in his gut.)

“You call that a deal?” he drawled quietly, staring her down, eyes narrowed shrewdly. And then, when enough time had passed, “What's in it for me?”

“My honesty,” she smirked, and Tahno's stomach began to warm.

“For real,” he deadpanned, though his mouth was already running dry.

The girl stepped closer and his breath—stupid and unreliable—hitched in his throat.

She looked him in the eye— _blue, on blue_ —and said, “I'll show you what I can do in five.”

* * *

_For fuck's sake—_

He hadn't hooked up in the back of a car since he was sixteen. (They had _apartments_ , for chrissake. He thought he was _beyond_ this part of his life.)

But apparently not.

Tahno glanced both ways before crossing the street, though it was probably a moot point in either direction. Nobody the fuck around for miles, save for the house two blocks behind them, and some other random-ass party half a mile down the ride that was twice as loud and probably four times as lame as the one they'd just ditched. He was acutely aware of Back Porch Girl trailing behind him, calm as could be, and Tahno felt an unfamiliar flipping in his gut. He actually felt a little sick.

Not his usual style.

They reached his car two blocks down the street—empty save for the endless line of cars parked along the side—and the blocks were rather long. They gave him plenty of time to wonder what the hell he was doing.

He still didn't know.

“This one,” he said quickly, then thrust the keys into the lock. It was half a joke when he held the door open for her, but the look she gave him before she slid into the backseat of his car wiped the smirk right off of his face. The back of the car was very dark, and the two meager street lamps were useless, which was fine by him, except for the fact that he was finding it hard to breathe.

He was still deciding on his next quip—something about her stupid challenge, or her own apparent ability to jump from one conquest to the next, the _hypocrite_ —except he fucking refused to even _allude_ to the existence of Shaozu, and _refused_ to refer to himself as a conquest, and absolutely, above all else, refused to say something until he'd thought of something particularly cutting and clever. Which was why he still hadn't said anything.

He didn't hear the car door close behind him, but he knew it was there, sturdy and shut, because the world was dark and shadowed, and the air was thick and tight, and he couldn't even fucking remember this girl's face in black of the backseat, and it didn't really matter, in the end, that he wasn't the one to make the first move, because the car door was stiff against his back, sturdy and shut, the cold glass hard against his skull, no space for his legs, his arms around her waist, _her_ hands in his hair, all over him, and the last thing he remembered thinking— _next time, a bigger car_ —was not very important at all, and then the rest of it was lost, hot wet mouths and grinding hips and _challenge, be damned_ and eighteen or fucking no, she _did_ , in fact, know what she was doing.

But Tahno was a very competitive person.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

 

He decided that they’d both won, in the end.

Until, of course, an hour later he returned from the other room, back to their freshly-acquired corner of the kitchen with her drink from the keg— _uncharacteristically_ _optimistic, impressively naive_ —and realized, naturally, that she was nowhere to be found.

* * *

“Hey,” Korra gently took hold of Asami's arm, breathless from her near-sprint down the stairs. She had to move quick. “Look,” she said, then gasped down another gulp of air. She was suspiciously sober, but she needed to be right now, and _right now_ she needed Asami to _leave_.

Dammit.

“I'm sorry to bug you, I know you're having a good time, but—”

“Ready to leave?” Asami asked immediately, examining Korra's stiff and jumpy frame.

She couldn't help it: _Ouch_ , Korra thought. _She_ , of course, knew that there was more to her need for a hasty exit, but Asami didn't know anything; it was already a blow to her pride just to admit her lameness out loud, so did Asami really have to look at her so intently and knowingly while she said it, too?

_Buck up, Korra._

“Yeah,” Korra nodded, and tried to look apologetic through her stress. (And she did feel sorry, but mostly just really fucking relieved.

And _empowered._ )

(She'd stood up for herself in something again. _Twice_. This was so much more her style.) Korra clung onto that feeling, holding it tight. _Fuck it_ —she didn't care if Asami thought she was lame or boring for leaving early. She wanted to go home and she _said_ so, and she felt relieved and confident and powerful and _satisfied_ and _fuck_ , still really horny and—

“ _Oh_ , thank _god,”_ Asami practically moaned, then reached down to slip off her heels, one at a time. Korra nearly choked. “Seriously, I was beginning to think you were nevergoing to run out of energy.”

Korra balked.

“ _What_?”

“Oh god,” Asami laughed, a tiny bit wobbly— _okay_ , more than a tiny bit—and Korra's arm instinctively offered itself in the same moment that Asami's hand reached out for balance. When she righted herself, she came face-to-face with Asami's laughing smile, and pure, easy gratitude shining in her eyes. “I mean, I’m young, but I can only go for so long... I was afraid I was going to have to spoil your fun by being an old grandma. I've been craving sweatpants for like, an hour.”

_Shut—_

“ _Shut the fucking front door,”_ Korra thought suddenly, then realized that it wasn't exactly said in her head. Whatever. Was Asami actually telling her what she _thought_ she was telling her? “You've been ready to leave for an _hour_?” Korra asked, because she had to make _sure._

Asami laughed again, easy—so easy, how did she _do_ that? “God, maybe even a little before that. I mean—don't get me wrong!” she said quickly, then pulled out a pair of thin, folded up flats from her small clutch, shoes that Korra hadn't even realized were in existence, let alone in Asami's purse. She slipped them over her feet effortlessly, and then hooked two fingers though the straps of her heels, letting them hang down at her side, like a boss. “I had fun and I _love_ to dance... but I've never been much of a night owl.” She gave a little shrug. “I was planning to just stick it out until you were ready to go, but I'm sort of relieved it's now. It's nice to know that we're on the same page.”

Well. Korra had always been a bit of a night owl but that was beside the _point_ ; the point was that Asami hadn't wanted to stay any longer at this party _either_.

“Oh, thank _god_ ,” Korra exhaled, mindlessly. Asami only smiled harder.

“Come on,” Asami hooked a hand around Korra's arm, and ushered her towards the door. And—well. Korra didn't _think_ she minded, at least. “Let's get out of here. All the men here are creeps anyway, and I've got an entire library of movies at my dad's cottage, plus a whole lot of wine.”

Korra grinned, then faltered. _Shit,_ she realized. _I... think I might like her, after all._

She decided not to dwell on it.

“Fucking _sweet_ ,” Korra hissed in delight, instead.

“Oh, god,” Asami laughed, holding tight to Korra's arm. “Let's get the hell out of here. Boys suck.”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

 

Korra didn't remember much from that night.

(There was a _lot_ of wine, after that.  
  
  
Like.  
  
  
  
  
  
A _lot_ of wine.)

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

One thing she _did_ remember, however,  
was stopping at the tiny-ass supermarket  
on the way back to the cottage, and asking Asami  
if she liked ice cream.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

And, as it turned out:  
She did.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

 

 

“Dude,” Shaozu hissed, and let the door slam open into the wall of their apartment. “You're a fucking _wreck_.”

Tahno was responsive, but not in the most helpful of ways. After much yelling and not a whole lot of _productive_ moving around, Ming finally slipped past Shaozu—still shouting from the doorway—into the apartment, over to where Tahno was sitting on the floor—leaning against the couch, spitting out a string of slurred curses with the aid of a mostly-empty bottle of tequila in hand—and silenced the both of them with a hearty: “ _Shut the fuck up, both of you_.”

There were still too many insults being slung to keep track, but at least Ming had managed to entice Shaozu into actually entering the apartment. (Shaozu kept glaring down at Tahno suspiciously, like their captain was about to steal something from him at any moment— _perhaps his soul?_ —but no, he was pretty sure he already had that.) While Ming crouched low to the ground to inspect Tahno in the most covert ways possible—Tahno had not ever taken kindly to being looked after, drunk or otherwise—Shaozu locked the door behind him and proceeded to storm about the apartment. Back and forth, they traded barbs and jabs—mostly below the belt, but that was nothing out of the ordinary for them—until it came to surface—it had _slipped_ , Ming decided, for Tahno would never have admitted to such a thing, had he been in his right mind—that Tahno _had_ scored, sort of, but had fumbled in the end.

(And Ming wasn't the kind to say these sorts of things out loud, but— _maybe_ , he thought—maybe Tahno had lost track of the actual _goal_ , too.

Of the challenge.)

“You didn't get her fucking _number_?” Shaozu demanded, voice almost shrill.

Tahno rolled his eyes, shrugging nonchalantly from his spot on the floor. (Ming remained crouched at his side, sandwiched between the couch and the coffee table, should his captain need a hand... or the trash.) It came out lopsided, and his head rolled to the side as he slurred, “She knows where to find me.”

Shaozu was speechless. “ _Dude,”_ he demanded after a long moment, ire growing more and more apparent with each fiery breath. “How can you just let her go so easily?” he spat, barely able to contain his rage. “She goes to school in the city!”

“ _Shaozu._ ” Ming shook his head sharply, but Shaozu paid it no heed.

“Are you _kidding_ me?” he went on; the volume was lower, but the flames were _not_. “She ain't never coming back to the swamps!” he hissed. “Not unless _someone_ was gonna give her a damn phone number!”

Tahno's head swiveled to look at him. Ming watched as he looked Shaozu very carefully in the eye and—in a rare, impossible moment—asked, very clearly, without any arrogance or condescension: “Why didn't _you_?”

Shaozu frowned. At first, he was struck dumb, but at length he crossed his arms and muttered, a tad bitterly, “I was working on it.”

Tahno stared at him for a moment, blinked, then let out a scoffing laugh. “Typical. One day, Shaozu, you will finally grow a pair.”

Ming expected Shaozu to go off the handle, but instead Shaozu was merely watching him—Tahno, who rested his eyes as he leaned against the wall of the couch—seemingly deep in thought. Shaozu seemed to be considering him very hard... almost as if he sensed that something was different about Tahno. Something worth noting.

Ming wondered what he'd missed.

“Tell me her name, at least,” Shaozu said, not quite an order, not quite a plea. Whatever it was, it was shockingly calm, and Ming began to consider the two of his teammates all the more carefully, more convinced than ever that a piece of their puzzle was missing. Tahno let out an amused huff.

Shaozu gaped at him openly.

"You didn't even get her _name_?" he demanded and— _ah_. There it was: Shaozu's annoyance and anger, reliable as ever.

Tahno huffed again, head lolling to the other side. "She didn't get _mine_."

“You... You—” But Shaozu couldn't even seem to finish. “You _asshole._ ” (Nope—never mind.) “You fucking—you _blocked_ me all night for the sake of some stupid challenge—”

“Which _you_ proposed,” Tahno reminded him, and tried to point. He nearly stabbed Ming in the eye. “Fuck,” Tahno said, seemingly for no reason in particular. His head rolled forward suddenly, and his body— _oh, shit_.

“You fucking— _oh_ , fuck!” Shaozu hissed, then lurched forward, just in time to keep Tahno from slamming his head down onto the coffee table. “ _Balls_ ,” he hissed, and if Ming didn't know any better, he'd have said that Shaozu had half a mind to slam Tahno's head down onto the wood anyway.

“He's fucking passed the fuck out!” Shaozu snarled, and Ming tried not to let himself grow annoyed by Shaozu's usual drunken tendency of stating the obvious—loudly; his hands were still bracing Tahno upward—one hand on the shoulder, one palm smacked to Tahno's forehead—and Ming intervened before Shaozu could start to get any ideas. He reached up and shifted Tahno back against the couch, freeing Shaozu's hands and subsequently putting a bit more space between them. _Well_ , Ming mused privately. _At least_ _some_ _things have remained the same tonight_.

“It's not fair, man,” Shaozu quietly complained, crouching down. “He always— _shit_ , look at this bottle! The last timewe saw him _this_ determined to get drunk wasn't since... _Dammit_ , it's not fair! She was smokin' hot—and she actually seemed like a decent girl. I _liked_ her. And he took her,” Shaozu frowned, lips thinning into a hard, unforgiving line. “And he just _wastes_ it, like always. He just wastes golden opportunities like that one, while we scramble around after his scraps. I'm sick of it.”

“Don't worry,” Ming grumbled, voice and expression straining as he lowered himself down to take Tahno by the shoulders and lift him onto the couch. After a pointed look, Shaozu helped. A little. “He'll get what's coming to him. Eventually.”

“Yeah? Like when?” Shaozu muttered spitefully, but still helped carefully place Tahno's feet onto the couch, anyway. After a moment, a line of worry crossed his brow. “He's gonna regret this,” Shaozu muttered uncomfortably, sounding much more sympathetic to their captain's plight **,** now that said captain was unconscious.

(Ming, however, had a feeling that their captain wouldn't hold onto any potential regret as strongly—or for as long—as his forlorn teammate.

Not that this was the kind of thing he'd say.)

“Nah,” Ming dismissed with a soft sigh, rubbing two knuckles along his jaw. He reached down, plucked Tahno's limp wrist into the air, then let it drop heavily to the ground. “You know Tahno,” he muttered, to which Shaozu let out a companionable scoff, understanding in only a way the two of them could. “Besides...

 

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

“There's not a chance in hell he's ever gonna remember any of this, anyway.”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

 

 


End file.
